


RUN FROM ME, DARLING

by moonteeth



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Anthology Format, First Kiss, Inspired by the Bakemonogatari Franchise, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-19
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-04-03 23:18:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 27,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14007015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonteeth/pseuds/moonteeth
Summary: To be accurate, it wasn’t exactly that Yuu Kanda fell from heaven — he simply missed his footing and plummeted from the top of the stairs face-up. But he looked something like a falling star, tumbling down so strangely slow, his long black hair rippling like a dancer’s ribbon in the air.Allen could’ve likely avoided him, and perhaps he should’ve. Kanda was taller and broader, and for all his sickliness, it was more likely than anything that Kanda would strike him at full force and they’d both be sent sprawling down the stairs. All it would’ve taken was a swift sidestep.But Allen did not step away.A weightless boy. A melancholy class president. A one-eyed liar. A wicked fast, long-legged phoenix of a girl. In a small town in an even smaller world, Allen Walker — charming, young, and onlymostlyhuman — seems to have an unwitting talent for attracting the supernatural, the strange, and the beautiful.And few things in the world were more beautiful than Yuu Kanda.This is a story about beasts, to be certain. But it's also a story about love.





	1. want your blood (bluejay, 1/3)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nea_writes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nea_writes/gifts).



 

Although he didn’t look it, it was common knowledge that Yuu Kanda was seriously, debilitatingly ill.

Of course, nobody was really sure what it was Yuu Kanda was sick with. Kanda wouldn’t tell, after all, and nobody was bold enough to ask. You couldn’t blame them for that, either — Yuu Kanda had the fiercest gaze Allen had ever seen. But he _was_ sick. The fact was unquestionable; an unlikely yet paradoxically obvious truth.

Perhaps this bears repeating: _Yuu Kanda was seriously, debilitatingly ill._

He had the doctor’s notes to prove it, too.

Let it be known, Allen had never once seen Yuu Kanda participate in P.E., carry a stack of textbooks to the faculty office, or even so much as attempt to run. During morning assemblies or school-wide presentations, he would inevitably slip outside to rest in the shade, muttering something vague and dour about his anemia.

He was the nurse’s most dedicated regular, a decorated truant, and due to his frequent visits to the family doctor, he would unvaryingly come to class late or leave school early — if he bothered to show up at all.

A boy trapped in a immunitary vice-grip.

A boy at the mercy of his own body.

A biological hostage.

Or, well. Something like that.

One last time: _Yuu Kanda was seriously, debilitatingly ill._

But he didn’t look it. Not even remotely.

Although Allen had never once seen Kanda run, Kanda was in remarkably good shape. Almost eerily good shape, at least whereas a sick boy was concerned.

Allen had this _expectation_ of sick boys, after all. He didn’t think it was an unfair one. He’d spent enough time in hospitals to know what the incurably ill looked like. Sick boys were willowy, frighteningly slender in the likeness of fine thread, with ribs that jutted out from their emaciated frames with an unnerving definition and force. Sick boys had glassy, milk eyes. Eyes like a warm cup of London Fog. Sick boys were ghostly, white skin against white bandages and white dressing gowns; they were haunted, and they were the haunters.

A sick boy was an insubstantial boy.

And yet, Yuu Kanda was more than substantial. He looked solid. More than solid, he looked _strong_. He had wide shoulders — beautiful, enviably broad shoulders, a sharp jawline, and athletic frame. He was tall, too. Taller than Allen, at the very least, his frame hovering around 6’0.

(For reference, Allen was nearly 5’8. Very nearly, mind you.)

His body was one thing. His mind was another.

It wasn’t that Yuu Kanda was particularly intelligent. Not in the conventional sense, at least. He tended to score around the lower percentile of the class, which was probably fair, given how much material he missed. He did just enough to scrape by from grade to grade.

It wasn’t his intelligence that interested Allen, no. It was his eyes. His expressions, if one were to be perfectly accurate. Nowhere to be found was the London Fog look, the weariness of a shambler. Kanda’s default expression was, instead, one of vicious dignity. Sharp as the working end of a box-cutter, decidedly fox-faced. Hostile. Proud.

From what Allen could tell, Kanda didn’t have any friends, save for maybe Lenalee Lee, a childhood cohort of his. He didn’t seem to want friends, either. Usually, it was expected for the friendless to group up together at lunchtime to form a kind of community (or maybe a colony), but Kanda was the exception to this rule. He seemed to prefer to spend lunchtime staring at his phone, or out the window, or down at the pages of a book.

Sometimes, Kanda would be reading an impenetrable hardcover tome, the spine emblazoned in sober lettering with the name of some archaic great. Other times, he’d be flipping boredly through the pages of a comic book vapid enough to threaten damage to his intellect.

Judging by the cover, that was.

Maybe Kanda had a take-it-as-it-comes attitude when it came to his reading material. Maybe he would read anything with words. Maybe he chose his books with some ultra-specific criteria.

Or maybe he didn’t really enjoy reading at all.

(This was Allen’s best guess.)

He wasn’t being bullied or anything, no. Not as far as Allen could tell. But all the same, his disinterest in his classmates was palpable. Maybe even outwardly hostile.

If one had a keen eye for details, which Allen did, one might notice that through the very act of reading, Kanda seemed to erect a wall around himself that forbade anyone from starting a conversation with him. _Don’t bother me, I’m reading, I’m busy._

And so he’d go on and on, reading in the corner of the classroom with a cool face. Building his walls, nursing his illness.

As if it were natural for him to be there.

As it were natural for him not to be there.

And so, as it were, Allen had never exchanged a single word with Yuu Kanda.

You might wonder, then — why reasons could Allen Walker possibly have had for paying such close attention to Yuu Kanda?

You might guess one of the following:

 

  1. Allen Walker was infatuated with Yuu Kanda.
  2. Allen Walker was plain curious about Yuu Kanda.
  3. Allen Walker was simply this observant of everyone, with no particular mind for Yuu Kanda.
  4. A combination of the above.



 

If you guessed D, you’d probably be close to the truth.

Kanda was a beautiful boy, after all, about as close to Allen’s tastes (proclivities, fantasies, etc) as any seventeen year old boy could come. And Kanda was an easy target for one’s fascination; this cloistered prince, this sick-not-sick boy.

He was an oddity.

Allen Walker had a thing for oddities. He was quite the oddity himself.

Ah. Perhaps we ought to make a point of this.

 

  1. E) Allen Walker sensed a peculiar similarity between himself and Yuu Kanda.



 

It would not be until their senior year that he would know how right he was.

Specifically, the 4th of April.

We’ll start our story there.

It’s a very good story, I promise.

A story about Allen Walker. About Yuu Kanda. A story about somewhat-vampires, about jaybirds and mockingbirds and meddle-cats. A story about melancholy class presidents, manic murder ghosts, good-natured family girls, and one-eyed fakes. Deadly classroom stationary. A handful of silver tears. Wolverine teeth.

It’s a story about beasts, to be certain.

But it’s also a story about love.

 

 

-転落-

  


It happened in early April — a gorgeous time of year, by anyone’s standards. The air was wet and warm, the morning sun showers stirring up the scent of fresh earth and dust. For the sake of convenience, we’ll say that it was roughly 8 AM.

Allen was running up the stairs, late for class — he was always, always late for class — his sneakers squeaking noisily against the black, rubbery surface of the stair's treads. You can imagine that he had a piece of toast clamped between his teeth, if you’d like. (He didn’t really, though.)

The sun was streaming in through the stairwell’s atrium windows, big and bright, and at the exact moment Allen reached the second landing, a boy fell from heaven.

It was Yuu Kanda.

To be accurate, it wasn’t _exactly_ that he fell from heaven — he simply missed his footing and plummeted from the top of the stairs face-up. But he looked something like a falling star, tumbling down so strangely slow, his long black hair rippling like a dancer’s ribbon in the air.

He kept his body perfectly still as he fell, knees tucked up. If it hadn’t been terrifying, the sight might’ve been impressive, perhaps even acrobatic.

Allen could’ve likely avoided him, and perhaps he should’ve. Kanda was taller and broader, and for all his sickliness, it was more likely than anything that Kanda would strike him at full force and they’d both be sent sprawling down the stairs. All it would’ve taken was a swift sidestep.

But Allen did not step away. Instead, he outstretched his arms reflexively. He balanced back on his heels, bracing himself.

That day, instead of dodging, Allen chose to catch Yuu Kanda.

And in that moment, sealed his fate.

Why?

You see, the boy in Allen’s arms was extremely, preposterously light.

And this was no ordinary lightness, mind you -- not even the emaciated lightness of a sick boy, but rather a lightness that was so extreme so as to be nearly unthinkable. Allen could’ve balanced him on one hand. It was as if Kanda’s entire body had been gutted and filled with cotton, with felt.

Yes.

It was like Yuu Kanda wasn’t even there at all.

But he was.

It was then that Allen knew he was dealing with a monster.

Again.

  
  


 

-編組-  
  


 

“What do I know about Yuu Kanda?” Link repeated, somewhat wary. He frowned, worrying at his lower lip with his teeth — a tic of his, especially when he’d been caught off guard. He glanced down at the sheaf of papers in his hands, shuffling them idly.

“Yeah,” Allen affirmed. He offered Link a smile; rueful, but not at all repentant. “A bit of a weird question, I know.”

The last stragglers in an empty classroom, still tucking their books away with the protracted inefficiency of two friends looking for an excuse to hang out a little longer.

“I don’t see how I could know any more than you,” Link protested wanly. He kept shuffling his sheaf, knocking it primly into place against the deck before disarranging it once more. A shuffle, a _thud,_ and the cycle was complete. “I mean, haven’t the two of you been in the same class for three years now?”

Howard Link.

The class president.

More than that, a boy who embodied the exact ideals of what a class president should be. His prim and proper braid. His stern chin. His impeccable manners. His almost unbelievable seriousness, his fastidious dedication to excellence, his immovable position as the teachers’ favourite.

The way he held himself, you’d think he’d been a class president his entire life and was going to be one in some capacity even after graduating. In other words, a class president among class presidents; chosen by the gods of scholastic achievement for some inscrutable purpose.

Or maybe he just really liked the paperwork.

“Ah, yeah,” Allen said. He looked down at his hands, and was embarrassed to find he was trapped in the motions of his own tic — for the past minute or so, he’d been unconsciously clicking the stub of a mechanical pencil, pushing the lead out into a long, needle-like point. With one finger, he pushed it back into plastic body. “But, you know. We’re not... friends, or anything like that. Besides, you’re the class president. I assumed the two of you might’ve had a little more contact.”

“Not much more,” Link sighed. “As you might have noticed, Yuu Kanda is hardly interested in the company of others. The calm, quiet type. Perhaps that’s due in part to his illness.”

“His illness,” Allen repeated. He rapped his pen against the desk. “Right. Of course.”

The jet black shine of Kanda’s hair rippling in the wind. His weightless body, drifting down into Allen’s arms with the shifting grace of a feather.

His unearthly, ghostly lightness.

That wasn’t an illness, right?

How could it be?

The easy explanation would be that since Yuu Kanda was constantly ill, it was only natural he’d weigh light — still, Allen could hardly find it a convincing one. Not at that weight. Yuu Kanda wasn’t slight, and even if he had been, it wouldn’t change the fact he’d fallen from the top of the stairs all the way down to the landing.

Normally, in a situation like that, even the person catching him could be hurt pretty badly.

And yet, there had hardly been any impact.

His descent would’ve been somewhat angelic had it not been for the expression on Kanda’s face; first shocked, then _furious_.

There was no way. No chance that was an illness.

It was a curse, right? Had to be.

And a rather _bizarre_ curse, at that — Allen couldn’t imagine what sort of apparition would even be responsible.

“Let me think,” Link sighed. He set his paperwork down on the table primly. “Yuu Kanda is the adopted son of an artist-by-trade, Froi Tiedoll. A nice man. We’ve spoken once or twice in the faculty office. What else… ah. Kanda is a vegetarian. He reads often, but doesn’t seem to favour any one genre or author over the other. He incurred his illness about a month before transferring here, so we can infer that he was moderately healthy throughout middle school. Oh, and I do believe he’s ambidextrous.”

Allen laughed softly.

“You know everything.”

“I don’t know everything. I only know what I know.” Link’s lips pursed into a thin, sour slash. He looked vaguely displeased, though Allen couldn’t have possibly told you why.  “What’s with the sudden interest, anyhow?”

_Yuu Kanda is weightless._

_Yuu Kanda is a monster._

_That, or Yuu Kanda has encountered a monster._

_Yuu Kanda fell from heaven this morning, and he fell into my arms._  
_  
_ Wouldn’t you say that makes me responsible for him?

Allen’s bandaged left hand began to ache.

“I’m… just curious,” Allen said evenly. “This might sound insensitive, but he doesn’t really look sick, you know?”

Link’s eyebrows shot up.

“I _highly_ doubt he’s faking his illness.”

“No, no,” Allen dropped his pencil, lifting both his hands up somewhat frantically into a placating gesture. “That’s not what I was suggesting, not at all. I just,” he grasped for words, shifting restlessly against the hard back of his seat, “find it… a little odd.”

“Ah, well, plenty of illnesses present themselves in fashions that aren’t readily discernible. Kanda’s condition is no different — an invisible disability, so to speak.”

“Like mental illness, you mean.”

“I don’t believe Kanda is mentally ill,” Link said. He appeared to be choosing his words with extreme care. “I’m only saying that his illness has no visible, external symptoms. Maybe some kind of chronic autoimmune hemolytic anemia?”

“I don’t even know what that is,” Allen sighed. He leaned forwards and dropped his hand into his hands, tilting his chin upwards on slightly to offer Link a wan smile.  “You know everything.”

“I don’t know everything. I only know what I know.”

Autoimmune anemia, huh. A virulent malady of the blood.

That probably would’ve been a very good guess, under normal circumstances.  
  
"Yuu Kanda,” Allen said, slowly. Sounding it out. Soft. Rhythmic. “Kanda, Kanda. That’s an interesting name, don’t you think?”

Link just blinked up at Allen. He had arresting eyes, murky brown with an unsettling undertone of red; Allen was distinctly reminded of rust settling on the gears of an old bicycle. While his bloodborne stare lacked the frightening intensity of Yuu Kanda’s, he did possess an astonishing depth of clarity. An alert celerity.

Smart as a whip, that Howard Link. But perhaps that was only to be expected from His Majesty, The Venerable Class President.

“This is beginning to sound like a little more than curiosity,” Link finally said, tone undercut by an unmistakable layer of _curt._ Unaccountably _curt_ , really. Or perhaps _tart_ was a better term? A lime tart, topped with bright, acidic fruit. “Well, if tall, dark, and handsome is your type, then by all means—”

 _“No!”_ Allen cut in. He could feel a blush flaring up over his cheeks, hot and dark. He scrambled to defend himself, “God, _no_ — he, he looks like a prick, you know?” Allen sighed.  “Okay, okay. If I’m being honest, Kanda and I — we had a bit of a run-in this morning. Or maybe a fall-in?”

The salty-sour expression fell from Link’s features, quickly overtaken by a look of total bafflement.

“A what?”

“Well,” Allen temporised, “before you fall out, you need to fall _in_ , wouldn’t you say?”

“I... have no idea.”

“Well, it’s true,” Allen sniffed. “And this morning, Kanda and I fell-in and fell-out in very rapid succession. A dizzying sequence of events.”

“Okay, now you’ve completely lost me.”

“Fine, fine,” Allen rolled his eyes. “I’ll explain myself in more concrete terms. I... found something out about Yuu Kanda. Something he’d prefer I didn’t know. Something he’s been trying to hide.”

“In other words, a secret,” Link interpreted. Allen nodded gravely.

“Yeah. I only found out by sheer accident, but… yeah.”

“Does Kanda know you’re aware of his secret?”

“Yes, he definitely is,” Allen said, his gaze sliding down to the table. “There hasn’t been a confrontation yet, though. Honestly, we both sort of ran off after the fact.”

_Kanda slipping out of Allen’s arms, touching down to the landing. Stalking off, covering his face with one hand. Fast fast fast steps. The decisive toll of the first bell._

“You should probably talk to him.”

“He’s difficult to corner.”

“You’re difficult to deter. I’d say Kanda’s met his match.”

“Your faith in me is touching.”

"My faith," Link said, "is all I have."

And when Allen looked up, he noticed for the first time that day that the sclera in Link’s big, too-sharp eyes were shot through with blood vessels. Exhausted, perhaps, or perhaps he’d been crying earlier that day? In the moment, both explanations seemed profoundly absurd. After all, Link was meeting Allen’s eyes with the same look as always: that steady pinprick of dressing-down focus.

He looked normal.

But then again, all hiding things looked _normal_.

That was Allen’s unending suspicion regarding Howard Link: that he was hiding, that he was acting, that he was an imposter.

Howard Link was this peculiar combination of fastidious genius and childhood sweetheart — a combination too calculated to really go down smoothly. There was something in the seamlessness with which Link switched between both aspects that convinced Allen they were both masks. Beyond them, Allen was sure there must exist a third Link, a hidden Link, obscure and difficult to know. The source of his meddle-cat melancholy, surely.

Expect Allen knew a thing or two about masks.

Maybe one day, he and Link would be good enough friends that they could stop hiding from one another.

But who knew.

“I should get going,” Allen finally said. He pushed himself up from his desk, hastily scooping up his bag and cramming his pencil into the front pouch. “I need to talk to Cross.”

“Why?”

“Well, ah. To help him out with his work.”

Link seemed suspicious of Allen’s sudden change of topic -- or rather, the blatant curtailment of it. The reference to Cross’s work had likely only deepened said suspicion. Link laced his fingers together and leaned forwards, a question in his eyes.

Allen hated dealing with smart people. As far as he was concerned, he ought to be the only clever person in the world. Much easier that way.

“Nothing dangerous, I hope,” Link commented, half dry, half genuinely concerned.

“Now, your _lack_ of faith in Cross comes as something of a surprise, you know. Considering what he’s done for the both of us.”

“I admire Cross’ craft,  but not his character. I do admire yours, however.”

“Aw. I think you’re pretty alright too, Link.”

Link smiled. There was genuine relief in his smile. It was kind of cute, but also deeply, incalculably sad.

Like his blood-charged, tiger-coloured eyes.

Like a boy falling down the staircase.

“I’ll see you Monday,” he said. “Stay out of trouble, alright?”

“I will,” Allen promised. He smiled back. It was a dopey, friendly smile; the kind you couldn’t help but trust.

This wouldn’t be the first lie he’d ever told Link, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last.

  


-白金-

  
  


You may very well wonder about Howard Link.

His Majesty, the Venerable Class President.

His perfect braid swinging pleasantly between his shoulder blades, thumping up against his thoracic spine. Swinging, swinging, swinging like a hanged man. Swinging between the ninth and tenth vertebrae.

(Swinging like a cat’s tail.)

He has his own story. A gruesome, messy story. A story about duty, about shocking naivety, about devotion. Desire. Mania. Eros.

We’ll get to him soon enough, don’t worry.

I promise, okay?

  


-縁-

  


The moment Allen hauled his bag over his shoulder and stepped out of the classroom, he felt a tug.

Not a literal tug, mind you; rather, a mental one. Like a warm finger prodding at his mind, hey, pay attention. You might call that tugging Instinct, or Intuition —  a force Allen had learned to heed very closely, even respect.

You could say his instincts were sharper than most.

You could say he had a sixth sense for danger.

He held fast, though. Didn’t start looking around like an idiot, didn’t break out into a run. Hell, he didn’t even break a sweat. Instead, he put one foot in front of the other, meandering down the hall at a steady pace. The sound of his footfalls reverberated softly throughout the empty hallway, occasionally punctuated by the sharp squeak of rubber soles against the floor. He could hear the hum of the cleaners a floor above; the big, groaning machine they used to wax.

Turn the corner. He came to the stairwell; the same stairs where he’d caught Kanda. The stared down from the top — the fifth floor — and thought, well, this doesn’t look like a pleasant drop.

He wondered if Kanda had been scared. He wondered if Kanda had been, even for half a second, relieved to be caught.

Probably not, right?

Holding on to the railing somewhat childishly, he descended the stairs. Outside, the sun was still high in the sky — this perfect, gold-faced disc, backlit against an immeasurably blue sky. It hurt to look at it. Allen looked at it anyways, just for a moment.

These long days of daylight were still so new, with the bleak spectre of winter still lurking in recent memory. But soon, it would be May, then June, and the sun would only set at 7 or 8. Neah would bitch and moan about that, for sure. Sulky thing. Allen, for one, would relish the coming summer.

Down the front steps of the school building. Follow the line of a chain link fence.

He waited until he was about two minutes down the road before stopping in his tracks.

“What, were you really gonna follow me all the way home?” Allen asked out loud, shooting a glance over his shoulder.

Yuu Kanda, resplendently self-righteous, set his jaw.

Catching the glint of the afternoon sunlight, his long hair was the same shade as a blackberry; so shiny as to be somewhat laquer-like, dark as night with a peculiarly bluish undertone. His coloration was warm and quite healthy-looking. He was actually darker than Allen, though not by much. The collar and sleeves of his school blazer had a somewhat rumpled look, like a delinquent from a teen movie.

More relevant: Kanda’s expression, that hard look of blunt anger.

Most relevant: Kanda’s left hand, casually wrapped around the hilt of a box cutter, the blade drawn out. His right, gripping a black office stapler.

Strange weaponry, by all means.

Allen had seen stranger.

“Is it difficult to walk?” Allen asked innocently.

Kanda’s glare was ice cold. It was freezing.

“Because you’re so light, I mean” Allen elaborated, knowing he was digging his own grave. “There’s not much to ground you, so, I imagine it takes some practice. You seem to do a pretty good job of it, though, so maybe—”

And then, before Allen could even finish speaking, Kanda launched forwards, sprinting at full tilt to close the distance between them. His body sliced through the air like a cool breeze. Allen realised, then, that Kanda could move just fine.

The next thing he realised was that Kanda had completely placed the blade of the box cutter inside his mouth.

Kanda’s aim was as precise as a surgeon’s, like a tailor passing a string of thread between the thin part of Allen’s lips.

Allen’s grip on his bag faltered. It slipped to the ground, landing against the asphalt with a muted thud.

“Shut the fuck up,” Kanda said, “or lose your fucking tongue.”

He had a very low, very raw voice. If Allen had not been terrified, he might have found it beautiful.

The box cutter blade stuck to the meat of his left cheek. The force of it was just enough to remind Allen that it was there, but not enough to actually create an incision. Not a quiver in Kanda’s grip, either; he was staring down at Allen from the sharp line of his extended arm; fire and ice.

“W-wait,” Allen said, without really thinking. Clearly.

“You wanna do this the hard way, sprout?” Kanda clicked his tongue, _tch._ Allen noticed, then, that Kanda’s eyes were blue. It was probably an odd thing to notice, especially with a mouth full of metal. “Because I’m pretty sure I told you to _shut the fuck up.”_

And then came the stapler.

Kanda raised his right hand, so swiftly that Allen had the absurd thought that Kanda was going to strike him. But the strike didn’t come. Instead, Kanda inserted the spine of the stapler into the right side of Allen’s mouth — not the whole thing, mind you, though that probably would’ve been better. Rather, he had it interposed, pincered between the soft flesh of Allen’s cheek. Ready to clamp down.

Ready to staple him, to draw blood.

Allen was quickly developing a new respect for his stationary.

“Overheard your little conversation with the Class Prez,” Kanda went on, flexing his grip on the base of the stapler. “You ask too many fucking questions, you know that?” He nudged the spine of the box cutter against Allen’s teeth. He was a conductor, an artist; manoeuvring a mouthful of malice with practised ease. “It’s a serious pain in the ass.”

With his mouth full, Allen couldn’t have responded if he wanted to. Not that he had any interest in trying.

“You wanted to _corner_ me, right?” The look in Kanda’s eyes was downright dangerous. Voracious, even. “Well, here I fucking am.”

 _The calm, quiet type,_ Link had said. Some shockingly poor judgement. Maybe it was true; Link didn’t know everything after all.

_This guy is gonna eat me alive, isn’t he?_

“You noticed, right?” Kanda went on, tone dark and full of shadowed menace. He pursed his lips until they were thin and bloodless, the harsh tug of them quite nasty. “When you caught me.”

Of course Allen had noticed. How couldn’t he have noticed?

Kanda’s body, ethereally slight. Light as cotton. As air.

“It’s true,” Kanda said. “I have no physical weight.” Then, before Allen could so much as react to that confirmation, “Shit, okay, okay. That’s not exactly right. I have _some_ weight.” He stroked the hilt of the box cutter with his thumb. “If you wanna split hairs, it’s almost 11 pounds.”

Allen’s heart leapt clear into his throat.

Eleven pounds. Five kilograms. Basically the weight of a newborn baby. Of course, thinking of a five kilogram dumbbell, that weight could hardly be considered _completely_ insignificant — but there was also the matter of Kanda’s volume. The density of those 11 pounds, so to speak. Eleven pounds, spread throughout the mass of a fully-grown 17-year old boy —  that weight really would feel like nothing, wouldn’t it?

What were the parameters of Kanda’s condition? Did gravity exert a limited influence over him? As it were, Kanda was currently operating at about a twelfth of his body’s natural mass. He should be suffering severe osteoporosis as a result of low bone density. His internal organs, brain included, should be shutting down, unable to operate in their current state. He shouldn’t even be able to ingest food.

And yet, here he was.

It was a curse. Had to be.

The question was, did _Kanda_ know he was cursed?

“You look concerned, sprout,” Kanda snorted. “Stupid. You should be a little less worried about me, and a little more worried goddamn knife down your throat.”

 _It’s called multitasking,_ Allen would’ve liked to say. _I can be worried about several things at once. It’s a well-developed skill of mine, actually._

“I went to the hospital, at first. They tested everything.”

The box cutter dug a little deeper into the side of Allen’s mouth, digging into Allen’s skin somewhat painfully.

“Everything showed up fine. Like I’d always been this way. They offered — _Christ,_ get _this_ — to send me to a specialised _weight managemen_ t clinic in the city. No way in hell, I said. No more fucking doctors.”

In Kanda’s slate-blue eyes, Allen could see the truth scrolling by as though broadcasted by a CNN news-ticker. INVASIVE MEDICAL PROCEDURES. BODILY HUMILIATION. TOO MANY MACHINES. TOO MANY HANDS. THEY CAN’T FIX ME. THEY CAN’T FIX THIS.

“Curious about how I got to be this way, huh?” Kanda said, cocking his head to the side. “Let me tell you, sprout. My weight... my _body_ was stolen from me.”

_Stolen?_

“Don’t get me wrong,” Kanda continued. His eyes flashed to this side, narrowing in a look of vague annoyance. “It’s not that I want you to know. I don’t _care_ if you know. And I sure as hell don’t need your pity. I’m only telling you so you’ll quit asking questions.”

Kanda grimaced. His hair shifted in the afternoon breeze, a jagged lock of nightblack hair coming to frame against his face. There was a ruddy red blush rising up on his cheeks, blended by the light.

“I’ve been this way for two years,” he said roughly. “I can walk just fucking fine.”

Allen flexed his jaw, which was becoming quite sore indeed.

“What I need is for you to say quiet about this. You got that?” Kanda’s gaze was still hazardous. “Don’t go asking any more questions. Don’t talk to me at school. And don’t. Tell. A fucking _soul._ If you can guarantee that, nod your head twice. Any other response, and I’ll make meat out of your mouth.”

Was this a bluff? Was Kanda seriously willing to attack his own classmate in broad daylight? The look in Kanda’s eyes told Allen all he needed to know. This boy was iron-wrought. Far from sickly, far from weak, this boy was _frightening._ More frightening than a knife. More frightening that the whole world’s worth of staples.

There would be no negotiation. Allen nodded twice. Vigorously.

“I see,” Kanda said.

He didn’t look _pleased,_ not exactly. But he looked about close to _pleasure_ as a boy like him ever came. The hard, deep set of his frown lightened up, the stiff line of his shoulders relaxing into something a little less guarded. Not soft, but softer.

Slowly, perhaps even carefully, Kanda removed the box-cutter from Allen’s mouth. He gave Allen’s still-open mouth a quick glance as the edge of the blade slipped past Allen’s lips, as if making sure he hadn’t mistakenly given Allen a cut during their conversation. Seemingly satisfied, he thumbed the box-cutter back, sheathing it one jut at a time.

Allen waited for the stapler to follow suit.

But Kanda didn’t pull the stapler away.

Instead, he clamped down on it.

_KA-THHHUNK._

Several things happened at once, then. The first was, of course, pain. A sharp, sparkling pain. It struck him with an awesome, torrential force, like a tidal wave. The staple pierced deep into Allen’s gum, lodging itself there. Allen’s mouth exploded with the taste of something hot and metallic — so much like the taste of the knife.

Allen would’ve preferred the knife.

Kanda removed the stapler from Allen’s mouth with a swift, casual flick, and Allen was free. He chose to exercise said freedom by crumpling immediately to the ground, hands curling into fists against the pavement as he fought, with every inch of his being, not to scream.

“You’ll get worse than a fucking staple next time you pry,” Kanda said. Allen glanced up at him from the ground. There was something regal about this, the way he towered over Allen’s prostrated form — as well as something tyrannically, blisteringly cold.

“You’re crazy,” Allen rasped — then, he flinched.  The staple in his mouth flexed and shifted as he spoke, sending a fresh wave of pain rolling throughout his entire oral cavity.

For the first time in his life, Allen then saw Kanda smile. It wasn’t a very nice smile. Rather, it was more of a leer — a smirk at _best_.

“And you’re a scrawny beansprout.”

Allen would’ve liked to say, _Whatever, I’m the only beansprout that knows how to lift your curse, you stupid asshole!_ The pain, however, was enough to convince him to hold his tongue.

He took the next best option instead and spat at Kanda’s feet. His saliva was thick and stringy with blood. Somewhat pinkish in colour, actually. Some of it slopped down over his chin on the way down to Kanda’s shoes… which really, really couldn’t have been too attractive.

It was probably a miracle that Kanda didn’t kick him in the ribs. Or maybe a mercy.

Instead, with an expression of open disgust, he turned on his heels and began walking away.

His footsteps went scratch-scratch-thump against the rough, uneven surface of the asphalt. Still braced on all fours, Allen watched him go. Blood and spit glinting off the glossy black surface of his shoes. Ponytail bouncing against his spine, swinging merrily between his scapula. His hair exuded a gorgeous, lustrous black shine, like a halo in reverse. Like black light.

Yuu Kanda.

Allen’s weightless, hateful pseudo-angel.

He really was crazy, wasn’t he? Also, sour. And foul-mouthed. And, most damningly of all, _cursed._

With awkward, fumbling fingers, Allen reached into his mouth to yank out the staple. It hurt like a bitch. But he could handle it. Endure it. After all, he’d been through worse.

Yuu Kanda was a terror, sure. But so was Allen.

He tossed the staple aside in disgust, pushing himself up off the ground. Staggering upright, he wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

Ten feet ahead, Kanda’s broad back was retreating down the street.

Ah, that asshole.

He really did have a beautiful body, when all was said and done.

  


-間奏-  


 

Okay, so. At this point, you might have developed the vague notion that Allen maybe isn’t completely normal. Not entirely normal, at least.

It’s a fair suspicion. Or perhaps _intuition_ is the better word. In fact, I think just about anyone would find Allen strange — even without knowing about the attack. White hair, pale even at the roots. A livid red scar. His left hand, forever white with bandages.

Anyone would think he was odd. Warped. Abnormal.

And they’d be right.

So, I guess what I’m saying is that you should onto that notion.

It’ll do you some good.

  


-流血-

 

 

_My body was stolen._

Allen staggered forwards down the street. One step. Two step. His pace picked up into a brisk march, heading straight towards the warm glint of sunshine against Kanda’s hair. Three. Four. And then he was jogging up, his shoes scratching and scuffling loudly against the pavement.

He felt strangely conscious of the weight of each step, the way his body connected against the asphalt — heavy, solid. Rooting him.

Kanda’s footsteps were as soundless as they were weightless.

_I’ve been like this for two years. I can walk just fucking fine._

What about that first year, then? Did he ever lose his footing? Did he stumble? How many times was he sent sprawling across the pavement, grappling with the impossible task of stabilising an unstable body?

Kanda turned around sharply. His ponytail followed the line of his movements airily, swaying in the air like a horizontal sail, or a swath of fabric.

His lips were pink and papery. Allen had the vague idea they might have a pleasing texture.

“Hmph,” Kanda said. “I thought that wound would keep you down a little longer.”

“You almost sound impressed,” Allen returned.

He didn’t stop, didn’t pause. Not for a second. He just kept walking, dogged and undeterred, his tread heavy and methodical.

“I’m not,” Kanda said.

“You will be,” Allen said immediately. Then, somewhat abashed, “Okay, that sounded a little arrogant, huh?”

“It sounded stupid, that’s what.”

"Rude."

“Pretty fucking sure I warned you to back off,” Kanda said, just as Allen was beginning to move into his personal space. One of his hands wandered down into his pocket, perhaps fishing for the box-cutter he’d stowed away a moment prior. “Unless you haven’t had enough quite yet?”

“I’m difficult to deter,” Allen said, thinking of Link.

“Or a glutton for punishment.”

Allen sighed.

“You’re crazy,” he said at length, “and a jerk.” Then, perhaps paradoxically, he offered Kanda a smile. “You should consider yourself lucky I still want to help you.”

“Help me?” Kanda scoffed. His derision was completely genuine. “Like you could be of any fucking help.”

“Actually, I can.”

The glint of metal. The knife, reprised.

“Listen, sprout. I don’t _want_ your fucking _help_ , and even if I did—”

Allen opened his mouth up wide. He put one finger in mouth to drag his cheek back, too, exposing the pink of his gums and the white of his teeth.

Kanda’s box-cutter clattered to the ground.

It tumbled down with a sharp, glittering sound.

Crystalline.

“I can help you,” Allen said. “Okay?”

Kanda didn’t respond. He just stared at Allen’s mouth, at the wound speared into his cheek. Speechless.

Allen couldn’t really blame him for that. He’d likely never seen a wound close up before his very eyes. He’d likely never seen blood evaporating into steam.

Kanda was cursed, but in the end, he was still human.

There were many, many things he had yet to see.  
  
  
  



	2. need your blood (bluejay, 2/3)

 

Vampire.

A corpse supposed, in European folklore, to leave its grave at night to drink the blood of the living.

A cannibalistic monster in the shape of a man, save for its long, pointed canines.

A dead, undying thing. A demon. A creature of legend, bound to kill and consume until exhumed or impaled or burned.

The attack had occurred over spring break. A kind of embarrassing thing, being attacked by a vampire — especially now that the vampire fad had passed, and the overlords of the night were now the subject of a total cultural exhaustion. How passe, how trite. With any luck at all, Allen would’ve been attacked by a werewolf, or a ghost, or even a Shinto god. It would have made for a better story, right?

But Allen had never been lucky in all his life.

Of course, these days, it was easy enough to hide the incident. The lingering marks of Neah’s bite, indelibly red against Allen’s pale throat, were easily concealed by the high neck of his blazer. The deformed left hand, obscured by gloves or a thick layer of bandages. As for the scar, the simple fabrication of some bike crash was enough to persuade most.

As for the white hair?

Well.

He’d handwave that as fashion statement and call it a day.

  
  


-辰砂-

 

“You used to be a vampire,” Kanda said.

Allen nodded.

“Uh-huh.”

There was something surreal about this, walking side-by-side down the street with Yuu Kanda. Allen couldn’t quite put his finger on why.

Maybe it was the way Kanda’s steps produced no sound.

Maybe it was the fact that Kanda had threatened Allen’s life not five minutes prior.

Or maybe it was just the fact that Allen had never so much breathed the same air as such a beautiful boy.

Oh, except for maybe Howard Link on one of his better days. He could be a real knockout when his face wasn’t frozen into such some unfortunately serious expression.

Not that it mattered how attractive Kanda was, though. This boy — or perhaps man? Well, he was a tundra.

Even now, he walked with a decidedly hostile gait, jaw canted into a somewhat moody set.

Perhaps he was tense, or even shy. That was certainly a charitable explanation for his sudden determination to avoid eye contact.

It was more likely that he was just an asshole, though.

“A vampire,” Kanda repeated tersely. There was a biting edge to his tone. He shoved his hands into his pockets and scowled. “An Edward Cullen, Anne Rice ass motherfucker. The whole deal.”

“Um,” Allen said. “There wasn’t any sparkling involved. I’ll tell you that. But… yeah.”

“A vampire.” Kanda shook his head slowly. “You think I’m stupid enough to believe all this?”

“I’m not the one who weighs eleven pounds,” Allen reminded him, not unkindly.

Kanda’s jaw twitched. He looked like he very badly wanted to unsheathe his knife once more and was making a heroic effort to refrain. Commendable of him, really.

“You used to be a vampire,” he repeated. Then, with an air that was not quite defeated, “Okay. Fine. I’ll buy it. What are you now?”

“Human,” Allen said.

Kanda spied a glance at Allen, eyes flashing bright with distrust — and then, caught, they bolted back to the horizon.

He’d seen Allen’s flesh knit back together. Seen the blood crawl back into his veins.

What was it Neah had told him once, at the height of his power? _The mind may err, but never the blood._

“I’m human,” Allen said again. Then, feeling a little like a liar, he amended himself. “Well, mostly human. I... have a few lingering after-effects from the time I was immortal. Enhanced regeneration is one of them.”

“That’s fucking crazy.”

Allen smiled apologetically.

“I know.”

A beat of silence. The crunch of asphalt beneath Allen’s feet. Beneath Kanda’s, silence.

Quoth the raven: “How did you… un-become a vampire?”

“There was a ritual involved,” Allen said.  “Complex. Grueling. Slightly dangerous. I also had the help of… well, a specialist.”

“The man you’re taking me to see,” Kanda interpreted. “What’s this... _specialist_ like, anyways?”

“Ugh, Cross? Well. He’s a dirty bastard. An alcoholic, womanizing, spendthrift. He’s the worst. The absolute pits.”

“Then why the fuck are you marching me off to meet him?”

“Because he’s good at what he does, at the end of the day.”

“Which is?”

“You know,” Allen gesticulated vaguely, drawing shapes in the air with the tips of his fingers.  “Serving mankind. Exorcising evil.”

Kanda scoffed.

“Sounds like a fucking con artist to to me.”

“Nah, he’s the real deal. He just has the personality of an imposter.”

“Hm. So do you.”

“Wh— I’m sorry?”

Allen’s steps slowed to a near-halt, caught off guard by this accusation. He turned to look at Kanda — Kanda didn’t even bother looking back at him. He was still staring ahead at that endless, rapacious blue sky, eyes set with a hard look of unhappiness.

“Everything about you,” Kanda said, words cut like gemstones, “is just. So. _Phony.”_

Allen opened his mouth to argue — but what to say? _There’s nothing phony about me._ A blatant lie _. Don’t be rude._ Shallow misdirection. _Whatever, at least I’m not a complete and utter douchebag._ That would be satisfying, yes, but it’d be as good as a confession.

Kanda wasn’t smart, not by a long shot, but he certainly wasn’t brainless.

Allen pursed his lips together, deciding in the end on a stubborn silence.

They walked into the sunlight. Kanda was a fast walker. It was those long legs of his, Allen decided; long as a runner’s, long enough to make Allen ache.

“You wanna tell me a bit about it?” Allen asked, finally unable to cope with the unanswered question that was licking about them like flame. Kanda lifted his chin in mute surprise. “The spirit that stole your weight. It... was a spirit, right?”

Kanda worried at his lower lip with his teeth, brows pinched.

“I don’t know what it was.”

“Well, what did it look like?”

Kanda was silent for a long, long moment. Long enough that Allen was on the verge of thinking he was being intentionally ignored.

Then, Kanda’s voice came through, sharp and unsteady.

“It looked like a bird.”

“A bird? What kind of bird?”

A restless shift in Kanda’s shoulders.

“How… the fuck am I supposed to know?”

“Not a fan of birdwatching, I take it?”

“Please. I’d rather gouge my eyes out.”

“Fine, fine. Describe it, then.”

“Describe it?”

“Mhmm,” Allen nodded. “What did it look like?”

Kanda wetted his lips with the tip of his tongue, looking torn.

Sun on the streets. Long, loving shadows. Honeysuckle-sweet breeze, slinking slow and seductive into the collar of Allen’s blazer. The second coming of silence.

“It had these… long, blue wings,” Kanda said. He cast his eyes skyward, as if to recall the precise moment he’d first seen it soaring overhead. “A white belly. Black around the eyes. It came down from the sky, looked at me, and…” Then, he faltered. The dreamy, thoughtful look in his eyes shuttered up. Disappeared. “I don’t remember much from that day.”

“Really,” Allen said.

“Really.”

Somehow, Allen doubted it.

“What did it feel like?” Allen urged him on gently. “When it was taking your weight, I mean.”

But Kanda was already boarding himself back up. Like his heart was an abandoned house, dilapidated and dangerous. Like his heart had gone out of business.

“Fuck off,” he said, rough. The pace of his steps picked up, tearing ahead of them with silent furor. “I’m done talking about this. Christ. Nosy little—”

“Don’t be a jerk,” Allen returned automatically, stung. ”I’m just trying—”

“Christ, just _— shut up,_ sprout. Shut up.”

“... It’s Allen.”

Christ. Yuu Kanda really was a tundra.

No, he was subarctic.

He was equal parts endearing and infuriating. This cloistered prince. This sulking wolf.

Miserable piece of shit pretty boy. Let me help you.

They scraped down the street in bittersweet silence. A silence neither comfortable nor awkward. It felt less like a stalemate and more like a ceasefire.

All the while, Kanda was wearing this awful expression; angry and tight and diamond-hard, but also so strangely hurt, as if Allen had done wrong by him somehow.

Perhaps that was even true, Allen thought. This bird, this curse — this was something painful for Kanda, wasn’t it? Perhaps it was only natural he’d hate to talk about it. He quietly resolved to apologize later, once the animosity between the both of them had died down somewhat.

They turned the corner. Went down the street.

Then, from Allen.

“Ah, this is the place.”

The apartment building standing before the two of them was an old, dilapidated thing; brown-brick like a Harlem project, low and stocky as a prison. One of the second story windows appeared to have been blown out entirely, hastily boarded up with a beat-up scrap of plywood, glass swept up off the street. And then there was the graffiti — secretly, Allen had always had a thing for graffiti, the grimy shine of it. This particular piece of graffiti read WANT YOUR BLOOD, rendered artlessly against the back wall in candy red, followed by an illegible tag that might’ve been a signature.

Kanda’s lips twisted into a look of disgust.

“It’s a shithole.”

Allen considered that.

“Well,” he said, “you’re not wrong.”

“Fuck, I think — is that piss? Am I smelling piss?”

“Don’t worry,” Allen reassured him, “it’s not human piss. There are a lot of feral cats around here, and uh. They’ve got a thing for the front bushes.”

Kanda’s eyes flitted to the door, then roved to the spattered wall of graffiti, red as fresh blood. _Want your blood,_ huh. Allen had an inkling as to who might be responsible for that little tagline.

“Are you introducing me to a specialist, or your crack dealer?”

“Hey. Show a little faith, okay?”

“Faith? You’ve got to be joking,” Kanda said, jaw tightening up. “Either you’re walking me into a fucking con, or I’m about to get jumped.”

“God, I’m not trying to _murder_ you,” Allen rolled his eyes. Kanda’s eyes flashed in Allen’s direction to pin him with a glare — clearly, he wasn’t finding any of this funny.

“You know, you couldn’t kill me if you tried.”

Allen met Kanda’s stare, steeling himself to say, “Is that a threat, or a boast?”

“It’s a fact.”

“Yeah? Even with my healing factor?”

“There must be some injuries,” Kanda said, low and hard, “that even you can’t heal.”

Allen thought of the way Kanda had flicked his wrist around the grip of the box-cutter, and said, “You’re absolutely brutal.”

Or are you simply terrified?

“You’re goddamn right I’m brutal.”

“Well,” Allen went on, his voice taking on a somewhat lofty tone, “I’ll have to ask you keep your stapler sheathed for the entirety of our conversation, okay? Cross is a bastard, but he’s also… kind of my saviour, I guess. Basically, threatening him is off-limits.”

Of course, Allen was pretty sure Cross could kick Kanda’s ass any day of the weeks, no matter how much stationary Kanda came equipped with. And that was without Neah’s help, too. Still, it would be better to let Kanda believe he was the most dangerous thing in the room.

Allen was developing the vague idea that Kanda would react badly to anything that could be construed as a threat.

Who scared you, Yuu Kanda?

“Hmph,” Kanda said. He was toying around in his pockets again, maybe stroking the hilt of his box-cutter, or testing the lethal grip of his classroom stapler. “We’ll see.”

“I’m serious,” Allen warned him. “Behave yourself.”

“Behave? I’m not a fucking dog.”

“Right, right.”

Though you look like a bitch to me.

Kanda was shifting from foot to foot, deliberating. Weighing his options, as it were, trapped between a rock and a hard place. A curse and a dark place, perhaps. He looked like a dark place himself, black hair blowing back in the faintest of breezes, hand still toying with the makeshift weaponry in his pocket, flat-glinting eyes steeling themselves against an uncertain fate. Dangerous and vulnerable, like a cornered animal. A beast to wrestle with.

Or something like that.

“You wanna head inside?” Allen asked, as gently as he could.

Kanda scrunched his face up. Sullen. Bratty.

“Whatever. Fine.”

That was about as close to a yes, please as Allen was likely to get.

And so they went.

  
  


-獣-

  


Cross’s apartment was like a modern day opium den.

It was a grimy, sensuous place, swathed in soft linens and strewn with all shades of waste and decay — plastics wrappers, priceless clothing, scraps of unopened letters and bills strewn across the floor like makeshift confetti.

And then, there was that look — a look Allen found both entirely alien and eerily recognizable. The look of disheveled, fantastic sex.

Beneath the scent of cigarette smoke, the snap of dry wine, and the subtle tang of blood — the scent of women. The musk of their bodies, the cloying sweetness of their perfumes. Floral, peppered amber. Noble, effusive, disturbing. Feral.

There was a pale pink nightshift lying over a lamp like a second shade, casting the room in a peachy glow. A spring sticking out of the couch. An elaborate array of emptied glass, littered over every available surface.

Neah was sitting in the far corner, curled up in a ball on the bare floor. He looked quite bored. It was an unusual expression to make, surrounded by such a lurid detritus, but then again, Neah would’ve seemed out of place no matter his mood. He looked to be about ten years old, his hair sticking up all over like black candyfloss, his face forever sulky-set.

Had Neah been a regular ten year old boy, which was to say, a _human,_ Allen would’ve objected to him staying with Cross.

But Neah wasn’t human, no. Not by a longshot.

He was much, _much_ older than ten years old.

“It reeks of sex in here,” Allen complained, wrinkling his nose. He levelled a look of disgust at Cross, who just went on smoking and lazing without shame. “You’re not doing it in front of him, are you?”

Cross was seated at the kitchen table, legs lazily crossed over one another. He was chainsmoking, as was his habit, the ashes of fallen cigarettes scooped into a dinner plate of an ashtray. His long, vividly red hair was pulled over his shoulder into a kind of haphazard half-ponytail. It might’ve been a good look for him. Allen couldn’t tell. Despite everything, his gut reaction to seeing Cross’s face, whole and healthy, was still _annoyance._

“Jesus Christ, no,” Cross said. He jabbed his thumb towards the front door. “I put him out in the hallway first.”

“Fucking gross,” Kanda said as he stepped inside, kicking an empty can of cider across the room. He looked kind of pissed, which was probably just his way of expressing discomfort. Most of Kanda’s emotions seemed to express themselves through anger, it seemed.

“Who the hell is this?” Cross waved his cigarette in Kanda’s direction. “Your boyfriend?”

Before Allen could go scarlet, Kanda cut in with a harsh, “Not a chance.”

Okay, well. That was maybe just a _little_ hurtful.

“Who the hell is that?” Kanda then countered, waving a hand in Neah’s general direction. “Your kid?”

“Not mine, and not a kid,” Cross said, eyes flickering to Neah. “That’s a shell. A husk. The lingering vestige of a once-great vampire. Pay him no mind.”

Kanda blinked, too astonished to even look properly angry.

“You’re joking.”

“Deadly serious,” Cross said, enjoying himself just a little too much. “Once, he was an all-powerful, blood-frenzied vampire — but he’s harmless now, obviously. Drained of his power, reduced to the state of a child. Pitiful, really.”

Neah stared at the three of them hatefully, but didn’t move, didn’t speak.

Kanda didn’t say anything either. Allen couldn’t blame him — he knew firsthand just how hard it was to send a snappy remark back at Cross’s more baffling tangents. At a loss, Kanda just glowered, sucking at his cheek and shifting his shoulders uneasily.

“You really can ignore him,” Allen said. “It’s a really long story, but — he won’t bother us.”

Kanda looked down at the floor. Gaps in a ragged red Indian carpet. Piles of condoms with the foil still on. Mercifully.

“You people and your _fucking vampires.”_

“Us people,” Crossed agreed monotonously. “Yeah, yeah. We’ve all got our damage.” His eyes — well, his _eye_ — narrowed a fraction. “By the look of things, you’ve got it pretty rough yourself.”

Kanda’s expression hardened.

“Something about him isn’t right,” Cross went on, now addressing Allen. Though his tone was still very casual, Allen could sense a curiosity growing in him. “Crissakes, kid. You’re just a magnet for charity cases.”

“I’m nobody’s fucking charity case,” Kanda said. Cross hummed.

“Not a charity case, eh. But you’re not quite _alright_ either, are you?” Silence from Kanda. Cross twisted his mouth around the shape of his cigarette, expression now decidedly indecipherable. “Why don’t you tell me a bit about it?”

“If I do, will you help me?” Kanda asked.

Cross shrugged.

“I might help you help yourself.”

“You’re such a fucking conman.”

“Hey,” Allen interjected nervously. Cross remained impassive, perhaps unimpressed, blowing a steady stream of smoke out between the narrow purse of his lips.

“Sure, I’m a conman. And you’re an eleventh-grader with a shit attitude.” Cross tilted his head against the back of the chair, his one good eye staring up at the ceiling fan through the foggy lens of his half-moon glasses. “You seem like a stubborn kid. I hate that, by the way. Stubborn people don’t just ask for help, though. Not unless they’re desperate. Are you desperate?

“And you must be desperate to get your ass-kicked,” Kanda said, low and dark, hands jammed back into his blazer pockets — for half a second, Allen thought he could see the glint of the box-cutter emerge from the cotton fold of his clothes.

“He’s even more annoying than you are,” Cross commented to Allen.

“He’s… certainly spirited,” Allen offered.

Kanda’s jaw twitched, not knowing what to make of the compliment. Probably not even sure if it _was_ a compliment.

Allen wasn’t sure either.

“Hm,” Cross said, his teeth digging into the filter of his cigarette and grinding down. He chewed on that for a moment, rapping his long, knobbly fingers against the table. “No footsteps. No presence. You’re not dead, are you?”

“I’m not,” Kanda snapped, inexplicably defensive.

“Really? That’s good.”

“No kidding,” Allen muttered.

“Well, if you’re not _alright,_ but you’re not quite _dead,_ you must be somewhere in between. Shall we say misfortunate?”

Kanda rolled his shoulders. There was that look again, the veil of anger thrown haphazardly over his unease.

“Fucking conman,” he said again, quieter now.

Despite everything, Allen felt a stab of empathy. He let out a sigh, pulling his eyes from Kanda’s imperious face to address Cross directly.

“Kanda’s under a curse,” Allen explained gently. “It happened about two years ago, and he—”

“Stop,” Kanda said.

He was half-fury, half-apology. A curious contradiction.

“Kanda—”

“I can explain it myself.”

And so he did.

His voice was crystal-clear; a song with sad lyrics. Like a funeral march, maybe.

_Two years ago, my weight was stolen from me._

Yuu Kanda liked to think he wasn’t a victim, but Allen couldn’t help but see him as one. But that was on Allen, not Kanda. Allen saw everyone as a victim. Everyone but himself.

_A bird came down from the sky and pulled it out of me._

And carried it away in its beak. Carried it up, up on big, blue wings.

A boy without weight. Without impact.

Brushing through life like a feather on the wind.

Like he wasn’t there at all.

“That’s interesting,” Cross said, once Kanda had finished conveying his circumstances. He stubbed his cigarette out into his enormous ashtray, and it crumpled on impact; with a flick, he abandoned it entirely and was reaching across the table for a fresh light. He balanced the papery filter between pearly white teeth as he fished for a lighter. A fizzle, a spark, a flame. “And the bird, it was blue?”

“Does it matter?” Kanda snapped.

“Of course it does,” Cross said. “Spirits are fickle things, for sure; but everything they do, they do for a reason. If it chose to show itself to you as, say, a jaybird rather than a raven, then I have reason to believe the spirit _needed_ to a jaybird — or rather, _you_ needed it to be a jaybird. Do you follow?”

“Not at all.”

“Wonderful,” Cross said drolly. He blew a trail of smoke in Kanda’s direction. “Think of it this way: spirits are immaterial by definition, and therefore, the images they take are ultimately handpicked. Deliberate.”

“And what if it had been a raven?”

“If the spirit had been a raven, it wouldn’t have come to you in the first place.”

“This is a huge fucking headache,” Kanda said.

Cross went on smoking.

“Uh-huh.”

“Can you kill it?” Kanda asked.

“Excuse me?”

“This spirit. Can you kill it?”

“You’re a violent little fucker, aren’t you?” Cross said, arching an eyebrow. “Maybe. But I won’t. The spirit, after all, didn’t do anything wrong.”

That seemed to raise Kanda’s hackles, and rightfully so.

A tight anger building in his voice, Kanda burst out with a sharp, “But it—”

Cross was quick to shut him down.

“It didn’t do a goddamn thing you didn’t _ask_ it to do, idiot.”

And that. That actually shut Kanda up.

His fists clenched, his jaw clenched. His entire body froze up, pulling in on itself tight; Allen could see he was trembling with rage, but still. He didn’t say a word in response to that.

Huh.

Cross sighed, perhaps relenting, perhaps simply weary of Kanda’s histrionics.

“I won’t kill your jaybird,” he said, rapping his knuckles against the table lightly. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t do anything.”

“Then…”

“Go home. Purify yourself — a shower, clean clothes. White, if possible. We’ll call your jaybird down around sundown. Do you know where St. Anastasia’s church is?”

Kanda bit the inside of his cheek, then shook his head, no.

“Allen will take you, then,” Cross continued. He looked at Allen pointedly. “You’ll go with him, alright?”

Not a choice so much as an ultimatum. Not that Allen minded, not really.

“Understood,” he said.

Kanda was shifting from foot to foot again, still biting at his cheek, shell-shocked and wary.

“You’re going to call the bird back down,” Kanda said, “and then — what, ask it to give my weight back?”

“This isn’t a particularly malicious spirit,” Cross commented. “It shouldn’t take issue with such a plea, provided its one from the heart.”

“And you’re going to call it,” Kanda said again, a restlessness creeping into his voice.

_Who scared you, Yuu Kanda?_

“That’s what I do.”

“And your fee?”

Cross laughed.

“You’re sharper than I thought.”

“You don’t honestly expect me to believe that you, of all people, would help me for free.”

“You’re right,” Cross said. “I don’t do charity.” He grinned around the shape of his cigarette, the rod twisting to the corner of his mouth even as the smoke continued to rise up out of it, wraith-like. “Because I’m a greedy, greedy conman who loves getting paid.”

Kanda folded his arms one over the other.

“What did he charge you?” He asked Allen. “To deal with your… fucking vampire problem, that is.”

“About a thousand dollars,” Allen responded honestly.

_“A thous—”_

Kanda’s eyes bugged out. It was the look of a man who didn’t have a thousand dollars to his name, had never even seen a thousand dollars up close.

“What’s wrong with that?” Cross shrugged. “Any kid can make a thousand dollars working fast food for a month or two. Though this brat,” he jabbed in Allen’s direction with his index finger, “made it all by gambling.”

_“Gambling?”_

Cross waved a hand airily, “We can discuss my payment after you get your weight back. For now, you’d better get going. Less than two hours until sundown, and I have work to do.”

Kanda just stared at Cross. He seemed to be struggling to speak, to find his words — but what was it he wanted to say? _Thank you? See you then? I still don’t trust you?_

Allen thought of tugging on his sleeve, of guiding him out the door by the hand, but thought the better of it.

Instead, he murmured, “Come on, let’s go.”

He looked at Kanda beseechingly, and, after a few moments of silence, Kanda turned to Allen.

Turned to follow.

From his perch in the far corner, Neah stared after them as they left.

Though he remained silent, Allen could almost hear his reedy little voice in his head, _“That one, Allen? Really?”_

  


-神様-

  


Fade-out, swipe, star-shaped wipe; transition a half hour across town, into Kanda’s house.

Despite being the son of an artist, they seemed surprisingly well-off. It wasn’t an enormous house by any means, no, but a decent one. Pleasantly middle class, and so painfully a family home, filled with photographs and fresh flowers and the day-to-day clutter of living. Some of the photo frames were empty. Others had been turned face-down, their contents hidden. There were canvases stacked against the walls here and there, some of them blank, most lingering in some state of semi-completion.

More than anything, the house looked lived-in. The home of a real, honest-to-God family.

It was, for Allen, a window into another world.

Always the orphan. Always the stranger.

He certainly felt like a stranger now. An intruder, sitting on Kanda’s bed awkwardly as he waited. From across the hall, he could hear the spray of the showerhead, the damp slap of water running over cool tiles.

A rite of cleansing, Allen supposed. After all, bathing was historically associated with spiritual purification, wasn’t it? A somewhat literal association, but not necessarily incorrect. Allen always felt a little more at peace with himself after a hot bath, after all. And water, water was a symbol of transformation and renewal. Of life.

_I wonder, what do bluejays represent?_

Perhaps it was gauche of Allen, to be searching for deeper symbolism in everything.

Perhaps not.

The search for the truth was a complex and fickle thing.

_‘It didn’t do a goddamn thing you didn’t ask it to do.’_

Complex and fickle indeed.

Kanda’s room didn’t look much like the room of a teenage boy. It was low, dim, and somewhat spartan; a bed, a desk that looked suspiciously untouched, and a bookcase that remained suspiciously bare. Perhaps Kanda relied on libraries and used bookstores. The only real spark of personality to the room was a flat, bluish yoga mat lying right in the middle of the room.

Was Kanda one to meditate? The idea was both absurd and not. How easy it must be for Kanda, Allen thought, to lie back and untether himself from the world.

After all, he was already half there.

Maybe Kanda really was more misfortunate than Allen. Sure, fighting vampires was no easy task, but Allen had been cured of his own spiritual malady only a week after contraction. And then there was Howard Link — who had suffered a terrible curse, but was now missing most his memories regarding the incident.

Allen’s vampirism, Link’s bout of demonic possession — they were awful, to be sure. But Link and Allen’s curses were quickly alleviated. Flash-in-the-pan misfortune.

Yuu Kanda had been cursed for two years now.

Two years of hell.

The door to Kanda’s bedroom clicked open. Allen lifted his head, grateful.

“Oh, you’re d— _Jesusfuckingchrist_!”

He was immediately caught off guard by the sight of an almost entirely nude Kanda, save for a flimsy towel wrapped around his waist. It was only for a glimpse — but a glimpse was all Allen needed. A sleek, pantherish body, lean and muscled and tall. Not a sick boy’s body, not even close —

“Put some clothes on!” Allen blurted, twisting his head sharply to the side. He fanned one hand over his eyes, resisting the tug in his belly that urged him to look again.

_My type, my type, yes, yes,yes._

“Oh, get a grip,” Kanda scoffed, padding into the room and towards the dresser. Allen squeezed his eyes shut at the sound of towel dropping to the floor.

“Get a— what is wrong with you?”

“What do you care? We’re both guys.”

“It’s, um,” Allen scrambled for words. “It’s just the principle of the thing, okay?”

“What, you gonna pop a boner?” Kanda snorted, voice undercut by the smooth sound of the dresser sliding open. “Didn’t know you swung that way.”

“Why do you care how I swing?” Allen countered, folding his arms one over the other. Eyes still firmly shut, chastened.

“I don’t,” Kanda returned. A stubborn, reflexive response. There was a beat, then. The rustle of clothing against skin, warm and soft and whisper-slick. Then, with a distinct note of curiosity, Kanda continued trepidatiously, “Not even gonna bother denying it, huh?”

“Not at all.”

“Huh.”

The hiss of a zipper. A promising sign.

“Can I open my eyes now?” Allen asked.

“I guess.”

Allen cracked one eye open cautiously. Kanda was, well. Still very, _very_ shirtless, but was at the very least wearing pants. He was a lovely sight. Annoyingly so, really. The white waistband of his boxers poking out from the edge of his pale blue jeans, underlining the distinct V of hipbones like a friendly suggestion.

“I hate clothes,” Kanda muttered. He was turning a white linen shirt over in his hands, smoothing his long hands over the creases and folds in the fabric.

Allen rolled his eyes.

“You’re like a fussy little kid, running around naked.”

“Piss off. I’m not _fussy.”_

“Then you’re an exhibitionist,” Allen said, flat. Kanda shot him a hard look.

“It’s not that either,” he snapped. His gaze slid back to the shirt in his hands and stayed there, holding with an uncannically keen focus as he plucked at the buttons lining the collar. “It feels… it feels shitty, okay?”

“What? Wearing clothes?”

Kanda lowered his head, damp hair curtaining his eyes.

“They’re too heavy.”

“Oh,” Allen said, feeling like the biggest fucking asshole on the planet.

He pulled the white shirt on, the muscles in his back flexing perceptibly as the garment wound itself over his shoulders. He had an unusual way of shifting beneath his clothing, a restlessness — like he was fighting off the urge to tear them off again. And that really must have been it.

Allen hadn’t considered all the ways Kanda’s affliction might affect his daily life. He’d noticed that Kanda didn’t have a schoolbag with him during their first encounters — could Kanda even carry one, as light as he was? It’d be more than double his body weight.

A biological vise. A hostage.

“Stop that,” Kanda said sharply.

Allen startled.

“Stop _what?”_

“Making that face.”

“I’m not making a face,” Allen said.

Kanda’s fingers were moving nimbly up his shirt, brusquely snapping each button shut.

“Yeah, you are,” he said. “It’s a stupid, vacant face.”

A pitying face, perhaps. _I’m nobody’s fucking charity case._

“What kind of face should I make?” Allen asked.

“I don’t know.”

“How about this?”

Allen scrunched his face up like he’d just tasted something sour.

“Fucking worse,” Kanda snorted. “Next.” Allen stuck his tongue out.  “That’s hideous. Next.” Allen puckered his lips up and pouted. “New heights of awful. Next.” Allen sucked his cheeks in and made a fishy face. Kanda turned his head away, trying and failing to hide his smile. “Ugh, nevermind. I think I just hate your face in general.”

“On the other side of things, I quite like your face,” Allen commented amicably, cracking his jaw. “It’s wasted on you, though, what with your garbage personality.”

“Oh, fuck _off,”_ Kanda said.

He didn’t look angry at all, though. Rather, he seemed a little pleased. Fiddling with the cuff of his shirt, he padded towards the bed and sat down next to Allen. They were close enough now that Allen could smell Kanda’s shampoo, sweet and surprisingly floral between them.

“You say fuck a lot, you know.”

“It’s a satisfying fucking word. Fuck.”

“Fuck,” Allen agreed.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“Fuckeroo.”

“Fuck a duck.”

“How much wood could a woodfuck fuck if a woodfuck could fuck wood?”

“Have you ever fucked?” Kanda asked.

“F—” Allen short-circuited. “What?”

“You look like a virgin,” Kanda said, crossing his legs one over the other.

The way he said it was so totally, completely casual, so natural. Like it was obvious. Allen had just enough presence of mind to be mildly offended.

“Okay, wow, that’s absolutely none of your business.

“So you are,” Kanda’s lips twitched.

“Is this sexual harassment? I’m pretty sure this is sexual harassment.”

“It’s just regular harassment, idiot.”

“Thanks for the clarification,” Allen deadpanned. “I wouldn’t want my lawyers to pursue for the wrong charges, would I?”

“You haven’t had sex with Howard Link, then?”

Allen could’ve done a fucking _spit take_ at that.

_“What?”_

Kanda shrugged, almost boredly.

“I see you talking sometimes.”

“So you just went right ahead assumed we’d boned?”

“I thought you might be _dating,_ idiot.”

It seemed Kanda paid closer attention to his classmates than he let on. Of course, that didn’t make his conclusion any more accurate. On the contrary, Allen found it to be unthinkably _insane._

“No way,” Allen said, shaking his head. “No way. Link… he’s my friend, you know? Just a friend. Honestly, I think I’m kind of his pet project. He wants to reform me into a proper, rule-abiding student. He’s always harassing me to study, to join extracurriculars — he even offered to put me on the student council.”

“Sounds fuckin’ boring.”

“That’s what I said,” Allen laughed. “But he means well, you know?”

“Eh. He’s always seemed like a bit of a rat to me.”

“Well, we’re all rats to you.”

“Not you,” Kanda said.

“Really?” Allen blinked.

“Yeah. You’re more like an insect, or even a slug.”

This time, it was Allen making a go at Kanda’s ribs. Kanda dodged with marvellous speed, scooting backwards against the mattress to avoid the harsh swipe of Allen’s elbow.

Allen was actually starting to have fun, despite himself. Kanda must have felt the same, because his expression was easier and more open than Allen had seen it all day. Or perhaps that was simply the influence of a hot, relaxing shower? Either way, he looked wonderful. Face uncreased, unlined by the sharp angles of wariness and bitterness.

It was becoming increasingly difficult to remember that this beautiful, evanescent boy had threatened his life with a literal weapon just a handful of hours earlier.

“Did a vampire give you that scar?” Kanda asked. He leaned forwards, gripping his knees with both hands.

Allen reached up to trace the ragged surface of his scar, thumb running along its ragged surface. It was hard to begrudge Kanda for asking; it was a highly conspicuous scar, so red and so angry and so curious stellate.

“Yeah.”

“And your left hand?” Kanda probed, eyes wandering down the length of Allen’s body — only to land on his left arm. His gaze stuck there, winding around white bandages winding around Allen’s white skin.

“Do you want to see?” Allen asked.

This seemed to make Kanda a little nervous.

“I don’t fucking know. Do I?”

Allen smiled; a weak, flickering thing, there and then not.

“It’s nothing gross, don’t worry.”

He pinched the upper edge of the bandage, the gauze as thick and warm as canvas. Slowly, he began to unwind it.

Kanda’s eyes widened as the bandages fell away, revealing the unnaturally smooth, lacquered surface of Kanda’s arm — pliable enough to be used, but undoubtedly hard, closer in texture to a carapace than flesh. It glinted ominously in the low, pale light of Kanda’s bedroom; only his nails, black and blunt, seemed to be completely matte.

Tough as armour, red as a rose.

Red as fresh blood.

Ten seconds of silence ticked by. Allen counted each and every one.

Then, finally, Kanda spoke.

“That’s… fucking weird.”

At least he was honest.

Allen rewarded that with a smile; this one was a little more genuine. It came up from deep inside him.

“We were able to remove… most of the curse from my body. Most of it. There were some lingering shades of that the ritual couldn’t remove. Then, like a localized disease, it concentrated itself to one particular part of my body,” Allen explained

Slowly, he lifted his arm up for Kanda’s inspection. Kanda jumped a little at the sudden proximity, obviously uneasy. For a second, Allen thought he might balk entirely.

Instead, he leaned in. His back arched forwards with a somewhat catlike _lancement_ , low and close enough that Allen could feel his breath against his skin. The shock faded from Kanda’s eyes, and what replaced it was a rapacious curiosity. His eyes roved up and down the length of Allen’s arm, taking in the mangled, chitinous surface with something like awe.

Though the texture of the skin is somewhat bizarre,” Allen continued, “the muscle itself hasn’t atrophied at all. This arm is actually a little stronger than the other, actually.”

“Can I touch it?”

Allen blinked.

“If you want?”

He thought Kanda might just want to test the give of Allen’s skin with a finger, perhaps at the bicep, or even simply test the give of the elbow joint.

That wasn’t what happened.

Instead, Kanda reached for Allen’s hand.

Inexplicably, Allen’s heart jumped up into his throat.

Kanda’s hand was unbelievably light, yes, but it was _solid._ Solid and so very warm. At first, Kanda did nothing more — simply testing the flex and the give of Allen’s hand, this strange, red phantom limb. But then — then, his nails were scraping lightly over Allen’s knuckles, soft and sweet — turning Allen’s hand over in his delicately, fingers against fingers, moving with an unbelievable, unfathomable gentleness.

Intimate. That was the word Allen was looking for.

It was intimate.

“Hey,” Kanda murmured.

His voice was unexpectedly gentle, thrumming and rushing, like a river, like the basin. Like they were both underwater, cresting as the white-tipped waves.

Such a strange softness.

Allen was reminded of sea-silk; it's lustre, it's strength.

“Hi,” Allen said.

“Earlier,” Kanda said, still holding Allen’s hand, “you asked me what it felt like. When — when my weight was stolen from me. When it was being taken.”

He bowed his head as if in prayer, black hair ticking over his shoulders.

“It felt like losing everything. Like losing my life. It felt like I was being reaped. I felt like I was going to die.”

“But…”

“But I didn’t,” Kanda breathed. “That day, I survived.”


	3. give it up (bluejay, 3/3)

 

St. Anastasia’s had been a beautiful church, once. It was romanesque structure, solid, stone-hewn in the way few buildings were these days; an abbey church. A holy place. A place of reverence. Even now, you could see a glimpse of its former stoic grandeur; though the roof was half-collapsed and the front doors were a mess of yellow tape and cobwebs, the building had strong bones. It would last forever, this mausoleum of stone.

There was a streak of red graffiti sprayed right above the double-doored entrance. _NEED YOUR BLOOD._

“You take me to the weirdest fucking places,” Kanda accused, kicking his heels into the pavement with a huff.

Allen smiled, a shade apologetic.

“Lucky you won’t have to put up with me after tonight, right?”

Kanda threw his glance down the road, scoffing quietly.

But he didn’t respond.

They’d ridden out to St. Ana’s on Kanda’s bike; Allen took the front while Kanda held on from behind. It was an arrangement Kanda hadn’t seemed particularly fond of, but he didn’t have much a choice: it was Allen who had to do the navigating, after all. Beyond that — well. Allen silently doubted that a boy without weight could exercise any control over his own speed.

So, better not.

“And Cross is waiting inside?”

“Most likely,” Allen said.

“But he’s not going to kill the bird.”

“He said he wouldn’t, so he probably won’t,” Allen said. Then, thoughts stalling as he kicked the bike up to rest against a nearby wall, “Do you wish he would?”

“I wish I could do it myself.”

The hard black of Kanda’s hair seemed darker than ever, backlit against the setting sun.

Even darker, the flat look of his eyes.

“I guess I can’t blame you,” Allen said. Then, a touch wryly, “Though I find your vindictive streak to be somewhat questionable.”

Kanda didn’t say anything. He just stared ahead, into the calcined ruins of the church.

This gaping ribcage of a place.

His brows were creased into a deep frown, teeth worrying at his lower lip.

It was like he was staring into the mouth of a beast.

“Hey,” Allen said. “Everything is going to be fine, you know?”

“I don’t need your reassurance,” Kanda said.

“I know you don’t _need_ it,” Allen rolled his eyes. “But. I still want to give you some reassurance regardless.” Kanda’s expression didn’t shift an inch — Allen sighed, then. “God, you’re so _prickly._ Like a hedgehog.”

“Is that an insult?”

“It isn’t,” Allen said. He stepped back, leaving the bike to rest up against the side of the wall. “You’re not so bad, Kanda. Not as much of a jackass as you pretend to be, at least.”

Kanda didn’t confirm or refute that. Just turned his head away, scowling.

Bristling like a porcupine.

“Let’s go inside,” Allen said. “Okay?”

Wind-thrush, the night-call of a sparrow. Trees rustling, grass whispering, crickets rising. A gold-faced moon, crawling up over the clouds.

“Whatever,” Kanda said.

 

-葬儀-

  


Cross, as it turned out, was already waiting inside.

He stood at the far end of the aisle, right up against the dilapidated altar; he half-leaning against the ciborium slab, his long legs folded in front of him.

He was dressed head to toe in the black clerical garb of a priest; a full-collar shirt and dark cassock coat. The ensemble was made infuriating svelte, even stylish on Cross’ lean figure. Stylish enough that he looked more like the kind of priest you’d see in a porn parody rather than in real life.

Uh. Not that Allen would know.

Kanda raised an arch brow as he stepped over the rubble and down the aisle.

“You’re — there’s no way you’re an _actual_ priest, right?”

“I was never ordained, no,” Cross confirmed, stepping down to meet the pair of them. “Did study theology in a seminary for a brief time, though, believe it or not.”

“I’m gonna have to go with _not,”_ Kanda said snidely.

Cheeky little bitch.

“I’m gonna have to ask you tone down the sass in here,” Cross warned Kanda, his single-eyed stare forever warily unimpressed. “Abandoned as it may be, this is still a holy place. I don’t talk with God too often, but I get the feeling he isn’t too damn keen on disrespect.”

“I don’t believe in God,” Kanda scoffed.

“What, why not? You’ve witnessed the supernatural with your own eyes. What makes God such a stretch?”

Kanda shuffled his feet about over the shredded, ruined carpet, struggling for his words. Allen watched him silently, a wash of sympathy rolling through him.

“If God exists, he’s an asshole,” Kanda finally said, without even lifting his eyes. “So I don’t care.”

That, Allen could agree with.

Cross was less enthusiastic. His lips pulled into a hard little frown — Allen could almost imagine the missing cigarette twisting to the corner of his mouth, sharply vertical.

“That’s an interesting thing to say,” he said. Then, his hard demeanour melted. “I think we’ve wasted enough time here. Why don’t we begin?”

Begin.

A twitch in Kanda’s jaw. He shifted again, restless, his feet scraping over that narrow carpet, over the bare floor beneath.

He had no idea what to expect, of course. No way of knowing what he’d be put through.

“Should I leave?” Allen asked, suddenly feeling intensely out of place in what was, in all likelihood, a ritual of a deeply personal natural.

Cross hummed, “Well, that depends on—”

But Kanda was quick to cut him off.

“Don’t,” he said. His voice was like glass; sharp, breakable, crystal-cut.

Silence. Allen’s eyes flickered between the two of them, firefly quick. Cross looked vaguely amused. Kanda, on the other hand, seemed a little surprised with himself. Ashamed, even.

As if the word had burst up out of him without his consent.

“Okay,” Allen said. Had they been alone, he would’ve taken Kanda’s hand again. He’d even risk being punched to do it. “I’ll be right here.”

Kanda looked away, face red.

“You showered and changed like I asked you to?” Cross asked, shifting the flow of the conversation in an astonishingly rare moment of tact. Kanda looked back and nodded. “Good. Kneel in front of the altar.”

“Kneel?” Kanda repeated. His eyes narrowed. It was somewhat comforting, seeing the hot-tempered anger return to Kanda’s eyes; fear and unease didn’t suit him much at all. “What, are you gonna make me pray?”

“I’m going to summon this jaybird back,” Cross said. “You’ll petition it, asking it to return that which it had taken. It should comply. This isn’t a malevolent spirit by any stretch.”

_“Petition it.”_

“Politely and respectfully,” Cross confirmed. “I assume you’ve never been _polite_ a goddamn day of your life, but I assume you’re at least familiar with the concept.”

Kanda still didn’t move to kneel. He stalled at the center of the aisle, jaw working — he looked vaguely upset, or at the very least displeased. This expression wasn’t lost on Cross, not at all.

“You’d rather kill it, huh?” Crossed asked. He shook his head.  “Violent. Stupid. Unfair. This particular spirit — it never attacks, never possesses, never harms. Why should we harm it?”

““Shouldn’t theft constitute as harm?” Allen asked nervously.

“It didn’t steal anything,” Cross said.

“Kanda said—”

“He’s a liar,” Cross said. Then, to Kanda, “Kneel at the altar. You want it back, don’t you?”

Kanda bit the inside of his cheek, displeasure turning to fury. Every inch of him seemed a weapon; drawn up to its sharpest edge.

He walked down the aisle. He stood before the altar.

And he kneeled.

“Close your eyes,” Cross said. “Put your hands together. And try to relax. What matters here is your frame of mind, even more than your manners.”

“My frame of…”

“Yes. This is your space. It’s natural for you to be here. So calm yourself.”

“Like meditating.”

“Exactly like that,” Cross agreed, nodding slowly.

Kanda closed his eyes. Put his hands together in mock-prayer.

A beat of silence, of shifting. Cross walked up the altar steps, making simple preparations — lighting candles, burning incense. The scent of it was heavy in Allen’s nose, filling up the space; it was warm and somewhat cinnamonic. Hot like a cleansing fire.

From where Allen stood at the center of the aisle, he had a perfect vantage of the setting sun streaming through the ruined roof, turning the flush of Kanda’s skin a pale, perfect gold.

Like a runaway god.

The atmosphere of the room changed completely. Maybe it was the incense, or the flickering candlelight, or the sight of Cross’ head bent forwards in a kind of reverence — but Allen nearly found himself closing his eyes as well, lost in the diffident, meditative mood.

Maybe that was the whole point.

Amber and sandalwood, wax candles, a priest’s cassock, a shower. Maybe this was just set-dressing.

A deliberate attempt to create an atmosphere where Kanda might allow himself to be vulnerable.

“What’s your name?” Cross asked.

“Yuu Kanda.”

“How old are you?”

“Seventeen,” Kanda said.

“What kind of music do you enjoy?”

“I don’t care about music.”

“What kind of weather do you like best?”

“Warm, with a breeze.”

“What month would that be?”  
  
“Late May.”

“Who was your first kiss?”

“That doesn’t matter,” Kanda said.

“What,” Cross asked, “is your most painful memory?”

Silence. A breeze came down through the gaping bones of the building, sending a shiver through the candlelight.

“I don’t…” Kanda faltered.

“You freezing up?” Cross cocked his head to the side. “You heard me, right? I’m asking about your most painful memory.”

“My…”

Kanda’s hands wound themselves together, tighter, tighter. Eyes squeezed hard as if to block out a penetrating light.

“Yes?” Cross urged him.

“My… my friend, Alma. He was like… a brother to me,” Kanda said. “But he was sick. Fuck. Fuck.” “They had him on… medication, I don’t know, but. It made it harder for him. To recognise me.” Kanda shook his head, his long, loose hair shifting over his back. “He was scared.”

“What did he do?”

“He attacked me with a kitchen knife.”

“What did _you_ do?”

“I…” Kanda’s let out a shaky breath. “I don’t remember.”

“Really?”

“I don’t… I don’t fucking _remember,”_ Kanda said, the words grit between his teeth. He sounded like he was in pain. Like there was a scream trapped behind his words.

“That’s interesting,” Cross said, very slowly, turning the words around his mouth like a hard candy. “Why do you think that is?”

Kanda’s shoulders were trembling.

“It would have been one thing,” Cross said, “if your bird was an ibis, or an albatross, or even a crow. But it was a jaybird. You know what’s interesting about jaybirds?” Sliding his hand along the cold, stone slab, Cross wandered to the side of the altar. “They mourn.”

_It felt like losing everything. Like losing my life._

“In fact,” Cross continued, “when a jaybird encounters the body of another bird, it calls out to rest to stop foraging. The jays fly down to the dead body and gather around it, often in a ring. They hold funerals.”

_I felt like I was going to die._

“I don’t fucking remember,” Kanda said. “what happened to Alma.”

“What do you know?”

Silence.

"What do you know, Kanda?" Cross repeated.

“That he’s dead,” Kanda whispered.

Cross smiled, almost kindly.

“Open your eyes, Kanda,” he said.

_That day, I survived._

Kanda opened his eyes, long lashes fluttering up against his eyebrow. As soon as they’d first blinked open, taking in the space in front of him — he went still. Completely. Totally. Paralytically. It was is if he’d been immobilized.

Like a deer in the headlights.

“Do you see it?” Cross asked.

Kanda nodded. He was staring dead ahead the altar, face drawn up in — fear? Rage? Disgust? Despair? It was one of the four, but Allen couldn’t tell which.

“That’s funny,” Cross commented. “I don’t see shit. You see anything, Allen?”

Allen looked up at the altar. It was completely barren, save for Cross, the wavering candles, and the continuous, rising haze of incense.

Empty.

“No,” he said.

“It’s right fucking there,” Kanda said, desperate fury creeping into his voice — barely containing himself, barely able to keep himself rooted. “It’s right fucking there, staring at me!”

“How do we know you’re not just pretending to see it?” Cross asked, cocking his head.

“Cross,” Allen hissed, hoping to defuse the situation.

Kanda beat him to the punch.

“It’s right fucking there,” he said, low and dark. Though a threat was evident in his voice, Allen could tell he was in the process of reigning himself in — breathing steadying, voice settling, trembling slowing. “It’s there, and it’s clearly visible. To me.”

“I see,” Cross said. “Good for you.”

He traced Kanda’s line of sight with his fingers.

He traced the shape of two wings.

“You know what to say, don’t you?” Cross went on.

Kanda hesitated, eyes still glued to the altar before him.

Then —

“Give it back,” Kanda said. “Please. Give it back.”

Kanda bowed his head, hands tightly clasped, so low his hair brushed against the steps of the ruined stone altar. Prostrating himself.

“Give me my memories back. My burden,” he said, nearly _begged._ The words — they came choking out of his throat; jagged, hard to say. “I know you just wanted to help. But I need to remember.”

The flames flickered again, but this time, there was no breeze to shake them.

“The weight of my grief,” Kanda said. “I need it back.”

Framed photographs turned face-down. A home full of loving, aching echoes.

_“I need to remember.”_

Just then, abruptly, the candles went out. Kanda gasped softly.

Like a burden had been placed on him.

The burden of approximately 130 pounds, to be precise.

The burden of an immutable memory, to be precise.

Kanda lifted his head. There were silent tears streaking down his cheeks, but he didn’t hide his face; unaware or unashamed of them.

In the growing darkness, his tears glittered like silver. Like mercury.

A gutted church, a man, two boys, and a handful of platinum tears to stir up the dust and darkness.

Somewhere, somehow — although incredibly quiet — Allen thought he could hear the distant beat of wings.

But maybe that was just his imagination.

  


-水銀-

 

 

A kitchen knife. One with a big, fat blade. You probably have one just like it in your own kitchen. At its widest point, the blade was about three inches; the handle was black and study, the perfect fit for an unsteady hand.

Like box-cutters and stationary, it was the kind of weapon you could reach out for and just find lying around nearby.

Not difficult to imagine, then, why it would be the weapon of choice for a terrified, delusional little boy.

Two years ago.

Kanda tried to talk Alma down, first. No good. Don’t come any closer, Alma said. I don’t know you. Don’t come near me! But Kanda did come near him. Arms outstretched, eyes entreating. Alma. Alma, hey, just listen.

It was a fatal mistake. The killing blow.

Alma reached for the knife, and he started forwards.

Kanda reflexively lifted his hands up in defence, saving himself from a potentially fatal blow to the upper quadrant of his abdomen. The knife slashed across his left palm — Alma reared back, then, eyes shining with fever-sickness — the next time, he would not miss, he was going to kill Kanda—

Kanda pushed Alma down by the shoulders, hard.

Alma fell back, and fell down — towards the countertop. Had Kanda simply pushed back instead of downwards, or even pushed a little more lightly, his back would’ve hit the countertop. He might’ve braced himself, or even dropped his knife.

But that isn’t what happen.

Instead, as he fell, Alma’s head struck the concrete counter at full force. Had the positioning been even slightly different, that day, the injury might’ve resulted in only a nasty bruise, or perhaps unconsciousness. But fate wasn’t on Alma’s side. What occurred instead was a fracture to the inner table of Alma’s skull and damage to the internal dural membrane of the brain.

When Alma’s back hit the floor, he was already seizing up.

Two days later, he’d be declared dead of an epidural hematoma.

And as far as Kanda was concerned, he was the one that killed him.

He’d killed his brother and confidant; his only friend in the world.

Another three days. Alma’s funeral.

Standing outside, his slender back pressed flush against the memorial hall, Kanda had what you might call a moment of weakness.

Who could blame him?

He prayed, then, for the pain to leave him.

He prayed to forget.

And just then — out of nowhere, piercing through the clouds like a thing from a dream—

_A jaybird came down from the sky._

  


-愛-

  


The next day.

Allen walked to school, like always.

Sneakers scuffing and squeaking against the pavement, like always.  
  
Tie askew, like always. Left arm smothered in bandages, like always.

It didn’t feel like an _always_ kind of day, though. The world around him felt different. Altered, in some imperceptible, hard-to-describe sort of way. Like the very taste of the wind had been revised and refined; once again, the world around him had evolved.

And so, Allen would evolve in turn.

He turned the corner, ascended the steps, and came to face the school gates.

There, quite unexpectedly, an interesting sight to be found there — slim, blonde, delicately interposed in front of all that gleaming black iron.

His Majesty, The Venerable Class President.

Link was standing in front of the school gate with a soapy pail of water, his school shirt rolled up to his elbows, a wet sponge wrung between one hand. There was something pleasant about seeing Link so rumpled. A nice contrast to his usual buttoned-up, buttoned-down persona.

“Wow,” Allen said, coming up towards him. “Is this some kind of punishment?”

“Graffiti,” Link explained, wrinkling his nose. He pointed to the big brick wall to the adjacent left of the gate. “Someone’s been leaving these silly tags all over town. The faculty needed someone to clean it up. I volunteered.”

“Teacher’s pet,” Allen teased.

“I know,” Link said. “I just can’t help it.”

Allen shrugged, still smiling, “If there’s something to correct, you correct it. I can admire that.”

He cocked his head to side, giving the graffiti a once over. _YOU ARE THE BLOOD IN ME._

 _How verbose of you, Neah,_ Allen thought. _Very nearly poetic._

Allen would have to reign the little demon in, one of these days. He was really starting to make a nuisance of himself.

“Did you get a chance to sort things out with Yuu Kanda?”

“I did,” Allen said. “Overall, I’d have so say… things went pretty well.”

“Really?” Link raised a brow.

The bird, the box-cutter, the stapler, the church, empty bottles, condom wrappers, shining tears, a gleaming wet body, the warmth of Kanda’s hand.

“A resounding success,” Allen nodded.

“Well, I’m glad to hear it,” Link said, though he was kind of frowning, like the idea was troubling him. “I certainly didn’t think it’d be easy to talk sense into Yuu Kanda.”

“Oh, it wasn’t. I’m just very, very convincing. And very charming, of course.”

“Oh, you’re smooth as silk,” Link said, voice full of blame. He looked down at the sponge in his hands, warm water dripping down between his fingers and into the bucket. “An absolute silvertongue.”

“Naturally. I’m a gambler at heart, remember?”

“Your poker face is top notch, Walker. I’ll give you that.

“Yours isn’t so bad either,” Allen pointed out. He laughed. “What does that make us, a pair of liars?”

“Speak for yourself,” Link sniffed, sounding quite grave indeed. Somehow, that only made it all the funnier. “I consider myself to be quite honest by nature. I’m... just not good at expressing myself. That’s all.”

“Much like someone else I know,” Allen smiled. “I probably shouldn’t keep you any longer, though. I’ll see you inside, yeah?”

Link nodded, braid bouncing, still clutching his sponge.

Assuming that would be it, Allen started towards the gate — but then, unexpectedly, Link spoke.

“Allen,” he said, still clutching at his sponge, eyes wide and intent. “I’m going to learn to express myself a little better, one of these days. I... hope you learn to do the same.”

Allen couldn’t help, it just then. He muffed a laugh against his hand.

“You’re almost painfully earnest, you know. Has anyone ever told you that?”

“No,” Link said, his braid swaying in the breeze. “Just you.”

  


 

-液体金-

 

 

Several things happened that day.

Word spread very quickly about Kanda’s _miraculous full recovery._ Everyone was talking about it, honest to God — it was the news of the week. Everyone would’ve made a huge deal about it, too, if Kanda didn’t look as poisonously hostile as usual.

He was completely, totally unwilling to talk about it, naturally. Somehow, that made the mystery of his recovery all the more enticing. One girl actually confessed to Kanda, overwhelmed with interest. Kanda spluttered out a rejection, naturally — though he was clearly mortified more than anything.

Still, Allen was more than a little pleased to see him shoot her down. For some reason, he found himself thinking he really, really didn’t want to see Kanda with a girlfriend.

Funny, that.

At their first break, Kanda came up to Allen’s desk and rapped him on the shoulder. Nothing short of a miracle, really, coming from the school’s sourest, most dedicated wallflower.

“Hey. Sprout.”

They’d shared secrets, laughter, memories, and even tears — insulting nicknames, however, were forever no matter what.

“It’s _Allen,”_ Allen huffed. Then, genuinely curious, “Why do you call me that, anyways?”

“What, you’ve never eaten beansprouts?” Kanda rolled his eyes. “They’re skinny, they’re stringy, they’re pale, and they’re cheap.”

“Do they at least taste good?”

“ _That’s_ your concern?”

“They _sound_ good,” Allen sighed, folding his arms against his desk. “I want stir fry.”

“Glutton.”

“Oh, come on. Everyone loves stir fry. Especially with beef.”

“Pass,” Kanda said, eyeing Allen suspiciously. “I’m a vegetarian.”

“Oh, right. Strangely enough, I actually knew that about you.”

“What? How?”

And so on and so forth.

Just as Allen was closing his eyes, tucking his face in against his arms to take a nap, Kanda said, “Hey. Beansprout. There’s something I wanna say.”

Allen cracked an eye open, dubious. “Yeah?”

Kanda’s jaw was working around his words, mouth drawn up harsh and tight and sour, like he was sucking on a lemon.

“I hate debts,” he said, practically spitting his words out.

“You and I are agreed on that, actually,” Allen said, laughing a little nervously. “Hey, how much did Cross charge you in the end?”

“Shut up. Don’t change the topic.”

It seemed Allen was doomed to underestimate Kanda at every step.

“I hate debts,” Kanda repeated. “And… I owe you a pretty big one, okay?”

Kanda drew in to throw a menacing glare Allen’s way, palms flat against Allen’s desk. It was a decidedly aggressive stance, especially when Kanda seemed to be dancing around an actual _thank you._

It was actually somewhat endearing.

“Don’t worry about it, really,” Allen said conversationally, crossing his ankles over one another.  Actually — just forget about it.”

And then.

Kanda’s hand found Allen’s, sliding slowly over the desk to cover it — Allen startled at the sensation of skin on skin, Kanda’s fingertips pressing lightly against his bare palm.

“I don’t want to forget,” Kanda said.

“You’re holding my hand, you know.”

“Do you have a problem with that?”

“I don’t, actually. But people are watching.”

“Let them watch,” Kanda said, and oh, God, Allen was really starting to like this boy, wasn’t he? How terrifying. How wonderful. “Hey. Allen. We have gym next, right?” Kanda rapped against Allen’s knuckles lightly. “Keep an eye out for me on the track.”

“Are you gonna run?”

“I’m gonna smoke ‘em all,” Kanda grinned, rough and hard and wonderful. “And I’m gonna do it for you.”

Allen grinned too, muffling a laugh into the crook his shoulder.

“You really aren’t gonna let go of my hand, are you?”

“Piss off. You should be _honoured_ to hold my hand.”

“I am,” Allen said, sotto. “Idiot. Trust me, I am.”

For good measure, he laced their fingers together.

_Together._

  


-神田ユウ-

  


Yuu Kanda, Allen thought, was no angel. Not by any stretch. He was loud and rude and fundamentally _unkind_ in a way that few people actually were. But he was no demon either, no. Kanda loved too much, too fiercely.

Was Yuu Kanda human? Taxonomically, yes — bipedal, cognisant, complicated. But wasn’t there something distinctly animal about him as well? The way he snapped and bit like a dog? The way his black hair trailed behind his strong body, leash-like, tail-like?

Maybe there wasn’t a word for what Yuu Kanda was. Not yet, at least. The language of Yuu Kanda, much like the language of love, of sex, of gender, of sadness — was still being invented.

Until the day language finally evolves to meet us, Allen would have to look beyond the dichotomy of angels and demons, men and beasts.

Monsters and lovers.

He would discard definition, and search only truth.

Live only in the truth.

Here was one truth: that Yuu Kanda was very, very beautiful.

A second truth: He looked more beautiful than ever on that day, crouched like a cheetah at the foot of the track, bracing for the whistle.

A third: The air seemed to crack around him when he took off down the trail; the world around him splintering like a broken teacup.

He beat them all.

He beat the runner-up by a fifteen second margin.

Nobody had bothered to set a stopwatch, but if they had, he would’ve set a new school record.

Finish line. Yuu Kanda, bent at the waist, sweat prickling the back of his neck.

Feet planted firmly against the end of the track, eyes scanning the crowd head-to-head before landing on Allen.

Only Allen.

Face upturned, chin held high, breathing heavy, magnetically, fanatically alive, he said, “See that?”

Allen laughed, clapping his hands together enthusiastically. He was grinning so hard it hurt; he could feel a funny sort of numbness creeping up into his cheeks. But he didn’t care.

Because it didn’t matter. There was something more important — happening inside of him, right at the center of his chest, and it was dazzlingly warm and full.

He felt like someone had speared him through the heart.

He must’ve been going completely crazy, too, because that didn’t scare him at all.

“You were amazing,” he said, and he meant it more than anything his grin splitting his face wide.

_You’ve amazed me, Yuu Kanda. Now and again and again and again._

Kanda looked down at the earth, bracing his knees with both hands. Shoulders rising and falling, up-down-up-down. It was hard to tell, what with the way his hair curtained his face, but Allen had a hunch that he might be smiling.

“Good.”

  
  
  



	4. i'm no angel (boa, 1/3)

 

 

There was this girl at school, Lenalee Lee.

She sat right in front of Kanda, close to the front of the class. A real beauty, that Lenalee — even more than Kanda, she was the loveliest thing in the room. Warm, too, and friendly. The nicest, sweetest girl you’d ever met.

Paradoxically, she was a childhood friend of Kanda’s — the foulest, sourest boy in class. Hell of a contrast. Allen supposed it did make sense, though, that even Kanda wouldn’t be able to resist the easy lull of her. Slow to anger, companionable, and most shockingly of all, _genuine._

Even Allen couldn’t claim to be that.

Sometimes, she’d turn around in her desk and cross her legs one over the other and make breezy conversation with Kanda. She was more or less the only person in the class that had this right. The only person that could be considered his _friend._

Or, well. Until recently, that was.

But were Kanda and Allen really friends? Friendship seemed, in their case, to be a descriptor both insufferably complex and misleadingly simple. Plus, there was none of the easy companionship, the good-natured chitchat. They were damn near antagonistic, trading verbal barbs as quickly and as fiercely as fisticuffs.

They also liked to hold hands, sometimes.

While not an act of war, this also struck Allen as decidedly less than friendly.

But we're getting off-topic.

Now, where were we?

Of course, of course. Lenalee Lee.

Dark hair, cropped at the shoulder, curling around her collarbone with a coquettish sort of shyness. A neat fringe slashing across her brow. An open face — never one to hide her tears, or her smiles, or the twists and tugs of worry and concern. Monolid, almond-shaped eyes, alert and violet-bright. A girl with common sense. A responsible, good girl, a girl with a head on her shoulders.

A girl who knew the truth, spoke the truth, and knew how to phrase the truth in such a way that everyone in the room might find it somehow agreeable.

A girl universally beloved.

And then, of course, there was her body.

This won’t be a sexual breakdown of her features, don’t you worry — in the eyes of Allen Walker, there was nothing more gauche than making unwanted commentary on the bodies of young girls. _À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs._ No, no. What was of interest here was what Lenalee’s body was capable of. Her strength.

She was thin-limbed but athletic; famous for her slender, strong legs. She was the basketball team’s ace, their captain and their icon. It wasn’t uncommon to see her jogging lightly through the hallway after school on her way to practice, shortish hair done up in a modest ponytail, shorts and jersey hanging off her willowy frame with a pleasant sportiness.

She was amazing on the field. Speedy, intelligent, calculatedly fair, and by God, she could _jump._

Arcing high, high up into the air, slamming the ball into the net with a slap of her palm — and _thunk!_ Her feet would smack back down against the floor, legs spread into a steady landing stance.

Buzzer, whistle, cheer.

Allen, along with the entirety of the student body, would stand and clap and holler, and when the teams went to line up on the court, Lenalee was there first, shaking hands and smiling, and her smile, you must know, it was the sun.

Good game, good game.  
  


-蓀-  
  
---  
  
  
“Allen! Hey, wait up a sec!”

She came bounding down the hallway in a half-jog, like a slow-moving bullet. Allen turned to face her, his book bag swinging over his shoulder.

She wearing her school uniform, not her team jersey— and she looked wonderful. The red of her school ribbon stood out marvellously against her pale, slender throat, and when she beamed, it was the focused smile of a young girl in her prime.

In full bloom.

Allen didn’t _love_ girls, but by God, he sure did like them.

“Am I in trouble?” He asked, only half-joking.

“Oh, constantly,” Lenalee nodded gravely, but her eyes were shining. “But I don’t mean to give you any more. You have Link for that, right?”

“Link keeps me honest,” Allen rolled his eyes. “You know how he is. A tattle and a scold.”

“So I’ve noticed,” Lenalee said, uncharacteristically dodgy around the subject. Allen often had the thought that Lenalee didn’t care for Link very much, which came as something as a surprise, seeing as the two of them seemed so alike on the surface. Goody two-shoes.  “You know, I’m honestly surprised you two get on so well.

“What, because I’m such a miscreant?”

“He’s so serious,” Lenalee insisted. “It makes me nervous. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him smile.”

“Oh, I’ve seen it,” Allen laughed, thinking of Link’s small, unexpectedly gentle smiles. “It is a little rusty, though.”

Standing in the middle of the hallway, their conversation felt perilously close to gossip. Allen took a sweeping glance around them, just in case Link was hiding in wait nearby. The coast was clear. In fact, with last bell having rung only a minute prior, Link was probably already scurrying off to the day’s student council meeting.

Kanda, on the other hand, would be waiting with his back slumped against the school gates, his bag slung casually over his shoulder. He would be cool and attractive and impossibly interesting, his dark hair and darker eyes, his slouching posture that suggested an enticingly unpolished devil-may-care.

Allen had promised to buy him a slushie. The blue kind, of course.

Lenalee hummed, eyeing Allen very carefully. She was steady beneath that misleading veneer of girlish innocence — iron hiding behind a decorative hand fan, or the upwards bloom of a camellia’s petals.

Pistil, stamen, core.

“You have a habit of befriending very unusual types,” she said.

“They flock to me,” Allen deadpanned. Lenalee smiled.

“I wonder why that is.”

“So do I,” Allen agreed, just this side of wistful.

Lenalee shifted from foot to foot, her pleated skirt rustling, brushing over her stocking-clad thighs.

“That’s actually sort of what I wanted to talk to you about,” she said cautiously, glancing back and forth before dropping her voice an octave lower. “An unusual type we both know.”

Allen’s smile froze.

“What?”

“I believe,” Lenalee said, “that he’s waiting for you right now. In front of the front wall, scowling like a mean dog, squirming like a cat.”

“You mean Kanda.”

“I’ve never seen Kanda take interest in another person like this,” she said. The sharp flash of glint appeared in her eyes — not hard and diamantine like Kanda’s eyes, but warm. Curious. “And so completely out of nowhere. And then — well. His… condition. It vanished.”

There was the flicker of discomfort, here. Piqued by his own curiosity, Allen hedged with a slow, “How much did you know about Kanda’s condition?”

“Not much. I just knew… that he’d been, um. Sick, ever since something… personal happened to him about two years ago.” She stopped, coughing lightly. For a long moment, she looked lost in her own thoughts, her feet shuffling lightly against the hallway floor with the barest scrape. Then, with a fortifying breath, the continued. “I thought it might be, I don’t know. Psychological. I just knew he didn’t like to be touched.” Then, Lenalee lifted her eyes. The violet-blue of them was piercing, nearly dazzling. “But he doesn’t seem to mind touching you.”

“Ah,” Allen said. He fought, to little effect, to hike the easy smile back up onto his lips. All the while, his gaze dropped tellingly to the floor beneath them, feigning interest in the scuffs and cracks in the waxed linoleum as he demurred, “We… well. We’ve gotten a little closer, lately.”

Lena’s expression softened.

“I’m not trying to cross-examine you,” she said. “I’m not trying to investigate you, or dissuade you, or wring any kind of answer from you. I’m just… I’m happy for him, actually.”

She put her hands up over her mouth, a laugh shaking from her slender frame through the shuttered fan of her manicured fingers.

“I certainly don’t mean to steal him away from you,” Allen said wryly.

“What? Gosh, no. Kanda’s like… he’s like family to me. Not my type.”

“What _is_ your type, Lenalee Lee?”

“Women,” she said.

“Ah,” Allen said. Then, after some consideration, “What a queer bunch we make.”

Lenalee laughed, sweet as summer. As a pale flute of champagne.

As fragrant, flowering grassgreens.

“Kanda’s the type to punish himself,” Lenalee said, her pink lips pursing around the sly curve of a smile. “He doesn’t often allow himself happiness. I don’t know what’s going on between the two of you, but. If he’s happy, I’m happy. Don’t you worry.”

Budding and flourishing.

Ripening.

Ruining.  


-蕊-

  
  
“Took you long enough,” Kanda groused, shifting restlessly up against the red brick wall. Allen smiled — a small, genuine smile, more apologetic than anything.

“Didn’t mean to keep you waiting,” Allen said. “I got held up.”

“By who?” Kanda asked, a crease appearing between his brows. It was stupid, really, the way he could be cute even when frowning.

“Hm, who do you think?”

“If I had to guess,” Kanda said, voice low and nearly _dejected,_ “I’d say it was that rat of a class prez.”

“He’s not a rat,” Allen said, for what was likely the sixteenth time. “And no, it wasn't him. Would it have bothered you if it was?”

Kanda rolled his shoulders, a restless twitch jumping in his jaw.

“You can talk to whoever you want. It’s none of my business.”

A shockingly mature response. Allen wasn't sure whether to be heartened or disappointed.  
  
“I’ve told you before, there’s nothing going on between Link and I,” Allen said, moving in closer, seeking out Kanda’s hand. Rough, long fingers found his, curling into the palm of Allen’s palm with such a curious, heartrending gentleness that Allen could’ve sighed aloud. “Are you _jealous_ of him?"

“Oh, piss off.”

But Kanda still laced his fingers through Allen’s. Solid. Reassuring. _I am here._

“So you _are_  jealous,” Allen grinned.

Kanda flushed, biting at his lower lip as his brows furrowed further.

“Drop it, sprout.”

“I think it’s cute,” Allen said, bumping his shoulder into Kanda’s. “I mean, in moderation, of course. I think I’d be absolutely _livid_ if you _did_ try to govern who I was and wasn’t allowed to talk to.”

Kanda’s gaze slid to the pavement.

“Same, I guess.”

“We’re a pair of stubborn beasts, we are.”

Kanda hummed, unimpressed.

“So, who held you up?”

“Let’s see. A rare flower of a girl, you could say. Our resident student body goddess. Oh, and the ace of the basketball team, no less.”

“Oh,” Kanda said, and something in his stormy expression seemed to clear up. “Lena.”

“Nothing to get jealous over, you’ll note. After all, we have incompatible genitals. Or should I say, incompatible proclivities?”

“Gross,” Kanda said, giving Allen a little shove, face screwed up in a kind of petty annoyance. “I don’t want to hear you say the word _genitals_ ever fucking again.”

“Wait, but _proclivities_ is fine?”

“Yeah. Because I don’t even know what that means.”

“For such an apt reader, your vocabulary really does leave something to be desired.”

“Smartass,” Kanda growled, pinning Allen with a hard look. “Whatever. I hate reading. You know that, right?”

“I mean, I assumed. After all, you hate _everything,”_ Allen reminded Kanda patiently, swinging their joined hands between them with a boyish giddiness. “Except for me, right?”

Kanda eyed Allen warily.

“Something like that,” he said, uncharacteristically cryptic. Allen rolled his eyes.

“How unbearably vague.”

“I’m not a talker,” Kanda said.

There was something dangerous in the way Kanda’s words cut off to short; a subdued, silky sort of danger, like someone who was mulling over violence but had not yet made a commitment towards it. It sent a shiver running down Allen’s spine.

The way Kanda looked at him, it was like — like Kanda wanted to eat him alive.

Devour him, destroy him, drink him down.

Oh, getting involved with this boy was a mistake.

A wonderful, wonderful mistake.

“Probably a good thing,” Allen said lightly, focusing his gaze somewhere between Kanda’s brows. “After all, you have this awful habit of driving me _crazy_ whenever you open your mouth.” Kanda pursed his lips but said nothing, shifting again to hike his bag higher up on his shoulder. “Still,” Allen continued, “I’m always curious to know what you think of me.”

“Buy me a slushie,” Kanda said, bowing his head so that his black fringe came fanning over his eyes. “Then we’ll talk.”

“I’m pretty sure this counts as extortion.”

“Uh-huh. Sure does.”

“You’re a cruel man, Yuu Kanda.”

Kanda snorted. “You think?”

“Oh, certainly," Allen nodded. "Cruel and selfish and — and obscene.”

“Sure am, sprout. But only ‘cause you like it.”

Damn. Allen bit on his thumbnail and frowned, troubled.

It seemed Kanda had him all figured out.  
  
  


-开花-

 

So, Allen bought him a slushie.

Spoils in hand, they traipsed out towards the edge of town, right towards the edge of the highway. A marvellous, mysterious place, the fringe of this small town — like standing at the end of the world. Here, the grass grew wild and long and unkempt, turning into a brush thick enough to hide a python. Wild flowers had begun to climb up out of the earth, snarling their sturdy, stubborn bodies around half-toppled street signs. They grew around the boards of old tracks, through the cracks in ancient roads, over the lush bodies of slow-moving creeks.

And those tracks, that highway, that creek — they extended into the hills forever and ever.

Into the universe and beyond.

And yet, Allen was absurdly, delusively positive this town was the nexus of all things. The center of the world.

They wandered over the old railway tracks, the iron gild of them rusted and disused. Allen hopped from one track to the next, balancing the balls of his feet over the narrow rails, board to board. Kanda walked alongside him, feet still firmly planted to the ground, mouth busied with the straw of a convenience store slushie.

“She didn’t ask me any questions,” Allen said, paying close attention to his own two feet — this elaborate balancing act, like a circus acrobat’s routine. “Just looked me in the eye and… came to her own conclusions, I guess.”

Kanda harrumphed quietly, and Allen couldn’t help but turn his head to look at him. The prim bow of Kanda’s lips, still pursed around his straw, were stained a pale and icy blue.

It was a tempting look.

“She should mind her own business,” he said, unkind. He pulled away from his drink, tongue darting over his cold, fruit-punched lips.

“She’s trying to look out for you,” Allen said.

“She — she should be looking out for herself. Idiot girl.”

Allen rolled his eyes.

“It’s comforting, I guess. Knowing that you treat all your friends this poorly.”

Kanda shot Allen a loaded look. Not hard, not mean, but — intense.

“Are we friends?” He asked.

“I guess we could be,” Allen hedged, turning his heel into the old copper-coloured beams thoughtfully. “Still, Lenalee certainly didn’t seem to think so.”

“Hm,” Kanda said. His tone was inflectionless, but his face was hardly devoid of emotion. Rather, there was a thoughtfulness there; his eyes were sharp with a clarity and a calm that Allen didn’t typically associate with Kanda. They fixed themselves to the valley ahead of them, the sun in the trees, as cool and lucid and blue as sugared ice.

Kanda bit down against his straw and took a loud sip of his slushie.

More of a slurp, really.

How graceful.

“If I’m not your friend,” Allen asked, “am I your enemy?”

Kanda laughed. It was a low, sotto sound — a rarified music. Allen turned the sound over in his head, examined it at length like a bolt of fine fabric, and promptly stole it away.

“Even I know that’s not how this works,” Kanda said, kicking his foot up against the underbrush. The weeds were snarling around his feet, prickles and burrs snagging at his black school socks. He batted them away with his heel, like he was chasing away a garden snake.

“A little black and white, yeah?” Allen smiled apologetically. “Would you rather we kept things in shades of gray?”

“Not — particularly.” Kanda’s eyes flickered away, mouth pulling up tight. “You’re not… not my enemy. That'd be stupid. You’re a huge pain in the ass, but I don’t hate you. But…”

“But?” Allen forced a laugh. It sounded awful, even to his own ears.

“But,” Kanda persisted, sounding completely, totally confident of himself, “there’s no way I could ever, ever settle to be your friend.”

There was something in his voice, something low and certain to be a joke. On the contrary — his tone was anything but playful.

“That’s, um, an interesting choice of words,” Allen hedged, wondering how quickly he could throw up a wall in the increasingly likely event Kanda pushed him to tears. “Settle, I mean. It’s almost, like. Like, you know, you’re implying you’d like to be more than friends.”

Kanda’s steps slowed to a halt. He turned, then, heel pushing against the grass — and looked up at Allen, still balancing, dancing over the tracks.

“I am,” he said.

Allen met his eyes then, disconcertingly close.

“Oh.”

“Yeah,” Kanda agreed quietly. Neither gentle nor harsh, neither kind nor unkind. Simply unhurried. “Oh.”

Taking his time with Allen.

All the time in the world.

“I didn’t think you’d be so direct.”

“Why not?” Kanda countered, a flash of stubbornness appearing across his otherwise serene features. “If you think I’m the type to wait, you’ve got me dead wrong.”

“My mistake,” Allen laughed.

And then, Kanda’s hands found Allen’s thighs, slid up to secure themselves at Allen’s waist. With Allen elevated up on the narrow platform of the rails, they were about equal height; Kanda had to look up just a little bit, his fine chin tilted, corded, masculine neck exposed —

The look of him, God.

It was the look of a thing left alone for far, far too long.

Feral. Half-wild, but rediscovering domesticity. Rediscovering love.

Allen had tamed Yuu Kanda.

Wrestled him into a collar and a leash.

Swaying over the tracks, shivering like a star up in Kanda’s arms, Allen felt a little powerful.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry knew it. _You are forever responsible for what you have tamed._ Allen would forever be responsible for this monstrous boy, this thing he’d caught and saved.

“Have you ever been kissed before?” Kanda asked, blunt. Allen shook his head, no. “Good.”

“Always so possessive,” Allen sighed. “You’re the worst.”

“Can’t help it,” Kanda murmured, leaning in. “Can’t stop.”

_You don’t need to stop, Yuu Kanda. Just keep holding me._

“Jealousy is an easily manipulable trait, you know.”

“Then manipulate me,” Kanda said. “I don’t care.”

 _Do what you will with me,_ Kanda was saying. _I am at your mercy._

“That’s a dangerous request,” Allen sighed, lifting one hand to Kanda’s cheek. He brushed his knuckles down across his cheekbone, framing it. Kanda leaned into his touch, eyes fanning to half-mast. “What should I do, invent wild, salacious stories… of imagined love affairs? Throw myself at other men just to stir you up? Would that work?”

“Of course it’d work. I’d be fucking livid.”

Allen laughed again, giggly and giddy and a little noisier than intended.

“Okay, okay — then, then I take it back,” he said softly, deft fingertips slowing over the velvet-smooth surface of Kanda’s upper lip. “I take it all back. I _have_ been given my first kiss, thank you — actually, I’ve been kissed a thousand times. I’ve been by everyone, everyone but you. And I’ve already lost my virginity — been held into the night, let fumbling boys crawl into my bed and touch and touch and... and —” A stroke of genius struck him then. He lifted his chin in triumph, head held imperiously high as he said, “and I fucked Howard Link.”

Kanda started forwards convulsively, arcing forwards in a desperate bid for Allen’s lips. Allen denied him, leaning backwards on his heels, leaving Kanda to strain forwards after him.

Like a dog on a short leash.

All bark, no bite.

“See?” Allen smiled. “Manipulable.”

“Surely,” Kanda said, low, “it isn’t fucking hard. To understand. The way I want you.”

“I’m beginning to understand,” Allen said, a note of wonder creeping up into his voice as he began to realize this was indeed true. “You want me all to yourself. More intimately than an enemy, more passionately than a friend.”

“I’m gonna kiss you now,” Kanda said, “you evil, sadistic little vampire.”

“Not a vampire,” Allen whispered. “Not anymore.”

Kanda leaned in.

He didn’t steal Allen’s first kiss, no. There was no pillage, no theft, no shadow of violence in the press of his warm mouth to Allen’s.

It was a tribute, willingly given.

Allen’s to give.

Kanda’s mouth was plush and soft and tasted vaguely of blue raspberry. Surely, the sweetened ice was lying in a heap at their feet, because both of Kanda’s hands were free, and they were cupping Allen’s face with a heartbreaking, impossible tenderness. Allen sighed heavily out of his nose, hands falling to rake up Kanda’s chest. To touch him, _touch_ this beautiful boy and his beautiful body, to lose his mind in the touching.

Nothing like this.

The sugar-punched sweetness of a boy’s first kiss.

Allen pressed his hips into Kanda’s gently, experimentally. Kanda exhaled noisily, his lips moving from Allen’s mouth to explore his jaw, his chin. He thumbed at Allen’s left hand, pinching ruinously at the bandage. His nails rasped lightly over the white gauze. It felt good, somehow. Oddly, oddly good.

Allen leaned away to lock eyes with Kanda. Kanda’s eyes are clear when they looked back at Allen. They were bright, mischievous. A smirk tugged at the corner of his lips.

“Hey,” Kanda said.

Allen put his face into the crook of Kanda’s neck, arms winding around his shoulders.

“Hi,” he said.

  


-蟒蛇-

  


There’s a bittersweetness in seeing other people happy. A strange bittersweetness. Strange and unkind. But it’s still there.

Still there, when you flip the image — when you think of Lenalee Lee waking up with markings she’s never seen before, pulling on thick stockings, covering up her arms and wrists in the dark cloth of her blazer. Crossing her legs at her desk, tilting her head into her palm, still somehow smiling through it all.

A girl who’d been pushed around all her life.

_If he’s happy, I’m happy. Don’t you worry about me._

_It’s been a long, long time since Kanda had the time to worry about me._

A girl bound to the ground.

When I think of Howard Link, nose burrowed in his textbooks late at night — it’s there. That bitter current, coming up beneath the sweet like the edge of a knife. Howard Link, staring out the window, focus slipping momentarily from his books and his plans and his regimentation. Dreaming without hope of love, of life, of the lush things he could not hold.

Howard Link, still struggling to find his words.

_Allen. I’m going to learn to express myself a little better, one of these days. I hope you learn to do the same._

_Just you, Allen._

These poor creatures.

These figures fleeing into darkness. 

Who was looking after His Majesty, The Venerable Class President?

Who would save him from his own heartache, from a devil of his own making?

Who was looking after Lenalee Lee?

Who would hold her, who would soothe her when the snakes came crawling by? Who would listen to her cry as they raised their heads up out of the garden?

Who would reach for her — reach one last time — as they dragged her down beneath a budding grove?

Who’d stick around to watch her die?

Who had the time?  
  
  
  



	5. i'm no demon (boa, 2/3)

 

This summer, near midnight, look up to the sky.

On those long, hot nights, when the moon is full in the sky, the Summer Triangle lies virtually overhead at mid-northern latitudes. Of course, you can still glimpse it Eastwards in the late spring, or sliding into the West well into November — but too far, too faint.

_Grasping blindly, like lovers—_

To explain: the Summer Triangle is an astronomical asterism involving an imaginary triangle drawn on the northern hemisphere's celestial sphere, with its defining vertices at Altair, Deneb, and Vega. The geometric arrangement of three stars, delirious in their heat and their magnitude -- friends to navigators, mysteries to astronomers, long-wonderingly penning curious descriptions of the ‘conspicuous triangle’ in their hand-bound atlases.

Altair, Deneb, Vega. How many variations on their myth exist? Countless. China, on its own, accounts for at least a solid ten. The story goes something like this: there was once a pair of lovers, a beautiful weaver-girl and a humble cowherd, represented by Vega and Altair. Their love was forbidden, and the two were taken far away from one another — but! In an act of divine pity, Deneb, the flock of magpies, would unite them, for one day a year, on the 7th day of the 7th lunar month.

How it must feel, to hold and to kiss after a year of such empty grasping. Wanting-not-having, dreaming-not-getting, waiting-not-sprinting. How it must feel, to have your love made eternal.  
  
This July, in the growing twilight — find Vega’s glistening eye, her pale, trembling feet moving uneven and afraid over the shifting backs of a hundred, thousand magpies. When you see her, give her my love.  
  
And for her sake, the silk-girl whose love moves on a hundred, on a thousand wings—

_This summer, near midnight—_

Try to believe in love.

Just one more time.

  


-蝮蛇-

 

There was this girl at school, Lenalee Lee.

A pretty girl. A well-spoken girl. A kind girl — kind to everyone, equal and without distinction. So intrinsically kind that it was impossible to take personally.

There was this girl at school, Lenalee, and she was easy to like.

Easy to like, but hard to know.

The next day, Lenalee came to school with her right leg clad in a heavy, white bandage. The gauze wound all the way up from the underside of her sock until disappearing into the hem of her school skirt, crisscrossing over itself in a muted, repeating pattern.

“Looks like we match now,” Allen said, gesturing towards Lenalee’s leg with a kind of wry sympathy. He was referring, of course, to his own left arm; still smothered in gauze to hide the unnatural, reddish carapace beneath. Burn scars, he liked to tell people.

Lenalee crossed her leg behind the other, the pleat of her skirt swaying pleasantly over her thighs as the corner of her mouth lifted into an uncertain, wan smile.

“Yeah, I guess we do,” she said, lifting one hand to tuck a strand of dark hair behind her ear, the gesture somewhat fastidious in nature. Fastidious, or just plain nervy.

“What happened? You didn’t get hurt, did you?”

“Hurt?” Lenalee repeated, looking for all the world like the word was unfamiliar to her. Then, her bafflement rapidly fading into an abashed understanding, “Oh! Well, I — I guess you could say… well. I was practising alone out in the yard, and I took a fall and skinned my knee on the asphalt.”

Allen spied a glance up and down her leg.

“Just the knee? Seems like overkill.”

“No, no. More than just my knee,” Lenalee blurted. She flexed her leg somewhat awkwardly, looking a little uncomfortable. “It’s, um — kind of a big gash, really.”

“That sounds painful,” Allen winced, bending down to give his own passing inspection. “It must sting like crazy.”

“It’ll be fine,” she said, shaking her head. The shifting curtain of her hair, the ends curling to hook beneath her chin, was hypnotic. “I mean, it’s clean. It doesn’t even hurt — it’s just a little ugly, that’s all.”

A little ugly, that’s all. Perhaps they were more alike than Lenalee truly understood — after all, Allen often felt the same way about his own left arm. The wrecked, rank deformity that now defined the flesh.

Ah — though Lenalee’s injury could hardly be anything _as_ ugly.

Nothing about Lenalee could ever be ugly.

She had a glow to her, that girl. A goodness, a wholesomeness. She looked like somebody’s daughter. She looked like everyone’s friend.

“Will you be able to play?” Allen asked.

“What?” Lenalee blinked, eyes going big and wide. She seemed someone slow on the uptake, like the thought of being held back by injury had never even occurred to her. “Yes,” she finally said, her eyes swerving back into focus. She hiked a smile back up onto her face; shaken, but certain. “Yes, I’ll be fine. I mean — I have practice today, you know? I wouldn’t want this to get in the way of — well. People count on me there.”

“Well, obviously,” Allen said lightly, rolling his eyes. “You’re their ace.”

“So they tell me,” Lenalee said, her smile softening into something vaguely sheepish; self-deprecating.

“Still, I don’t think anyone would blame you for taking a day off—”

“No,” Lenalee said. She lifted a hand to her mouth, turning it against her palm as she laughed. It was sort of an odd laugh — girlish and light, shivering through her body with the slightest, most woodwind of echoes. “No, no… that’s not what I want.”

Looking somewhat at a loss, she slid down into her seat, smoothing her skirt down against her legs as she went. She was still smiling her phony smile; she didn’t know how to make it convincing. A persuasive girl, but not an adept actress, that Lenalee Lee. Perhaps her leg was troubling her more than she was letting on.

Or maybe her entire story — practising out in the yard, alone, unwitnessed — was a fabrication.

It certainly seemed like a fabrication to Allen, and a clumsy one at that. But who could accuse Lenalee of telling a lie?

“Well, what do you want, Miss Lenalee Lee?” He asked as he leaned over her desk, his forearms pressed flat against the laminated surface of her desk.

“I want to be where people need me,” she said, careful, folding her prim fingers together. Like this, nerves slipping free beneath an unsteady mask of composure, she reminded Allen so very much of Link.

They really were somewhat alike. Not that Lenalee would ever appreciate the comparison

“But everyone needs a little Lenalee.”

“Then I’ll be everywhere,” she said.

Allen laughed.

“Everywhere? Really?”

A lustrous, diamantine shine returned to her eyes.

“Really,” she said.

Allen thought about that.

“I’d like to say that kind of attitude is harmful,” he said, lips twisting into the barest of grimaces, “but, at the same time—”

“— You share my attitude,” Lenalee concluded, a touch wryly.

Allen hummed his assent.

“I’m stupid enough to still believe I can save everyone, without need of rest or recompense or reward. But you should know better, Lenalee. After all, unlike me, you’re not stupid at all.”

“Well, that’s not exactly fair. Everyone's a little stupid. Even me.”

“And we’re entitled to our stupidity?”

“Stupidity is a right,” Lenalee nodded sagely.

“Is that a recent constitutional amendment?”

“Not at all,” Lenalee smiled. “In fact, you’ll find it’s a very old one.”

“How old?”

“Oh, it’s one of the very first. In fact, I’m sure the right to stupidity predates most of our legally-protected freedoms.”

Allen laughed; his was an abrupt, somewhat quizzical laugh.

“You know, you can be startlingly cynical, Lenalee.”

“And you can be remarkably dense,” she said, her tone beginning to take on the distinct cadence of a lecture. She raised a brow, eyes cast up in a look of benign condescension. Like she was explaining something absurdly, painfully obvious. “Saying you need no reward or recompense — when your heroism has already netted you the greatest, most selfish prize of all.”

“And what is that?”

“Love,” Lenalee said.

Just then, the door to the classroom door clattered open, and Yuu Kanda shouldered his way inside.

He might as well have come on a road of magpies, dressed in weaver’s silk, carrying a flickering hand lantern. Either way, whenever Allen so much as laid eyes on him, he had the bizarre, yet powerful notion of two stars meeting at the ends of the sky.

Allen’s surly, spitshine Hikiboshi.

He had his bag slung over one shoulder; maybe out of lazily, maybe just for the style points. He had one hand on his hip, as if to brace himself, and his chin was tilted to the side, his indelible scowl pointing downwards.

Allen wanted to punch him in the face.

More specifically, in the mouth.

With _his_ mouth.

God, he was really going crazy for this boy, wasn’t he?

Watching Allen watch Kanda, Lenalee’s smile turned smug. It wasn’t catlike, exactly — there was nothing playful or warm about it; only knowing. Allen would have to think up a better metaphor.

“Good morning, Kanda,” she said, sing-song.

He grunted, draping his back unceremoniously over his seat as he stalked into the classroom. It wasn’t a particularly charming grunt — in fact, most would even call it _uncharming_ . Ugly, crass, unpleasant, perhaps even _repulsive_. Kanda’s grunt, a half-assed greeting if Allen ever saw one, was antithetical to the mere concept of charm. But Allen was charmed all the same.

No accounting for taste, naturally.

“It’s a nice day today, don’t you think?” Allen said, in lieu of tackling Kanda against a wall and kissing him where anyone and everyone could see.

Kanda looked up at Allen. Looked at him for about three seconds straight. Then, face reddening, his eyes slid down to the cold linoleum floor.

“It’s fine,” he said. Then, a toucher quieter, “But it probably won’t get better than this.”

“You’re probably right,” Lenalee sighed. “We’re right at the crossroads between spring and summer, you know? Nothing is too hot, not too cold. It’s just perfect.”

“It certainly _looks_ nice out today,” Allen commented, spying a glance out the window — green grass all around, interspersed with the bright, flowering buds of wild dandelions and forget-me-nots. The canopy of deciduous trees sheltering the school building shuddered with a faint, pleasant breeze, their vivid green leaves knocking lightly against the streaky windowpane every so often.

“A lot of things look nice today,” Lenalee said airily, a mischievous glint in her eyes. “Wouldn’t you agree, Kanda?”

Kanda’s eyes narrowed, wary. Like he knew he was being led into a trap, but not what kind of trap it was — or when it would spring.

“I guess,” he said.

“Take Allen, for example,” Lenalee said, gesturing in Allen’s direction with a cheeky little wave. “Doesn’t he look nice today?”

Yesterday, Lenalee had already successfully intuited that there was something going on between Allen and Kanda. _If he’s happy, I’m happy,_ she’d said.

It seemed her true intention was to use this information as ammunition to tease Kanda mercilessly.

They really were like siblings.

Kanda shifted uncomfortably, between a rock and a hard place. Eyes betraying him, his gaze wandered towards Allen’s face and lingered there. Two seconds, three seconds. Five.

Then, catching himself, he yanked his eyes away. Blush deepening, he dropped his head down against his chest, face settling into a very transparent scowl. Poor thing. He was _embarrassed._

“He’s a brat,” Kanda muttered.

Somehow, that managed to be a little heart-melting.

“But he’s a _charming_ brat,” Lenalee argued, sounding nonplussed. “A clever brat, too. Clever enough to have you wrapped around his little finger.”

“And he’s been crushing it ever since,” Allen said wistfully, flexing his hand thoughtfully as he let out an easy sigh. “Like some kind of python.”

“I think a python would wrap itself around a little more than your finger,” Kanda said, rolling his eyes.

“... Is that some kind of threat?”

“It’s just a fact, idiot.”

Allen grinned, leaning forwards in his seat to whisper, conspicuously loud, “My, my, Lenalee. What could Kanda be planning to do to me?”

She shook her head, unsmiling.

“I want no part of this.”

“Kanda,” Allen said, turning around in his seat to meet Kanda’s cold-blooded, hot-blooded, icy-warm blue stare head-on. “If you’re planning on choking the life from me, I require no prior warning. In fact, I’m basically good to go whenever. Have at me.”

A positively romantic sentiment, as far as Allen was concerned. Going by his look of disgust, Kanda seemed to disagree.

“He’s crazy,” Kanda told Lenalee.

“He’s ridiculous,” she agreed wanly.

“I’m gonna smack him.”

“By all means.”

Kanda lifted his hand slowly, theatrically, telegraphing his intentions so obviously you’d think he was giving Allen the chance to dodge. But Allen didn’t. So the blow fell. It wasn’t a very hard smack at all, though. In fact, it might have been the lightest blow Allen had ever felt. More of a cuff than anything. A thump. Perhaps this was Kanda’s own personal brand of _playfulness_.

“So violent,” Allen pouted as Kanda pulled back. “Well, I guess that’s just how it goes when your fists are all you have.”

“My fists are all I need,” Kanda said, shooting Allen a glare.

“Yeah, but wouldn’t poisonous fangs be a bonus?”

“Pythons aren’t venomous,” Lenalee added, her voice cutting through the conversation with a surprising sharpness. “If they had venom, they wouldn’t need to constrict their prey. But that’s exactly what they do. They’re ambush hunters, like boas. You’re thinking of a cobra, or pit viper. They’re plenty venomous.”

Bang.

It was a guerilla zoology lesson.

“What about garter snakes?” Kanda asked, folding his arms. “I saw one in the yard the other day. Creeped me out.”

“They generally eat their prey whole,” Lenalee said, as if reciting from a textbook. “If you’re specifically asking about venom, they _do_ secrete a mild neurotoxin. It’s not strong enough to affect humans, though.”

Allen had never before seen Lenalee deliver such an academic oration. It was almost frighteningly Link-like — and very out of character. Lenalee was smart, after all, but never one to show off.

“That’s... some oddly specific trivia,” Allen said slowly, tilting his head to the side.

Lenalee smiled down at her desk uncertainly.

“Lately,” she said, twisting her hands together, “I’ve felt a— a sort of sympathy towards snakes.” She bit her lip, looking somewhat at a loss for a long moment — then, finding herself, she continued. “Snakes… are misunderstood, don’t you think? You know, in many cultures, snakes are considered sacred symbols of healing and transformation. Immortality, rebirth. You know, like the Ouroboros… or the snake twining Hermes’ caduceus.”

“Snakes are creepy as fuck,” Kanda said, point blank. “As for symbolism — well, I don’t really know anything about that shit. Still, I’m pretty sure everyone knows snakes are basically the embodiment of evil and deceit. All that Old Testament bull.”

_The LORD God said to the_ _serpent_ _, "Because you have done this, cursed are you more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field. On your belly you will go, and dust you will eat all the days of your life."_

“But they’re sort of beautiful, don’t you think?” Allen added. “Something about their scales, I think. So sleek and fine. Even their eyes are kind of arresting.” He worried at his lower lip with his teeth, considering the image in his mind; a boa prowling through the grass, black tongue flicking in and out of a cold, lipless mouth. “Still... I wouldn’t say I associate them with _healing_ of any kind. I think snakes were guardians of the underworld in Greek mythology — wouldn’t that actually make them symbols of death?”

“They’re representative of the umbilical cord,” Lenalee insisted, gesticulating emphatically. “The link that binds us to Mother Earth.”

“Ugh, it’s way too early for this philosophical shit,” Kanda groaned, scrubbing a hand over his eyes. “Symbols of life, symbols of death, symbols of good, symbols of evil — they’re just snakes. Just fucking snakes. They don’t have to _mean_ anything.”

“Everything _means_ something, Kanda,” Allen said, thinking of vampires, of meddlecats, of grief-sick bluejays.

Lenalee twisted her hands in silence, lost in thought. Kanda bowed his head, eyebrows drawn into a pinched look.

“Maybe,” he said. “Either way, the snakes don’t care.”

“What _do_ snakes care about?” Allen wondered.

Lenalee lifted her head.

“Survival, of course,” she said. “Maybe that’s their true pathos. I mean, there’s something nice and simple about that, you know? Just wanting to survive.”

“Well, humans are a little more selfish,” Allen agreed. “It’s not enough for us to just survive. We want to live well.”

There was a beat.

“Don’t make this deep,” Kanda interrupted, annoyed. “I still find the little fuckers creepy.”

“Is it the tongue?”

“No,” Kanda said. Then, a moment later, “Yeah, okay, it’s the tongue.”

  


-蛇皮-

 

Serpens, the snake.

A constellation on the northern hemisphere — visible between latitudes of 80 and -80, whatever that means. The literal, technical properties of the stars are of little interest to me, I admit.

I’m told Serpens contains a rare Red Square Nebula, whatever that means. I’m told Serpens is split into two non-contiguous parts, whatever that means. Some stars in Serpens, I’m told, experience X-ray bursts, some lasting hours at a time, possibly caused by the burning of carbon in a cosmic, elemental ocean.

A glowing, roiling, hot-bodied firesnake.

Whatever that means.

Serpens is also another summer constellation, best seen in July — a little after twilight.

Now, here’s the information that matters. Listen carefully.

Serpens is split between two parts; Serpens Caput, the head, and Serpens Cauda, the tail. Between these two halves lies the constellation of Ophiuchus, the Serpent-Bearer.

Some say Serpens is representative of man destroying the snake; of death, of man’s power over death. Of man’s conquest over nature. That’s just one story, of course. The Greek interpretation is that Ophiuchus represents Asclepius, a healer who unlocked the secrets of medicine and human resurrection in observing snakes. Apparently, Asclepius once gutted a snake, only to watch another snake slither over and cover its kin in medicinal herbs — saving its life.

An odd story, given what we now understand to be true about snakes. That they’re solitary, that they don’t form bonds. They hunt in solitude, abandon their young, cannibalise their brothers and mothers and lovers. They live and die alone.

Still, I like this story. Maybe that’s just my mistake, conflating the strange and the beautiful.

A mistake I make every day.  
  
Everyone lives and dies alone. Still, I think — I’d like to think it’s possible for us to escape our solitude, on our bellies, through dust, for impossible acts of compassion. Kindness, cooperation, brotherhood.

I’ve been studying the hidden history of this world for a long, long time now. I, more than anyone, need to find a way to go on believing that people can be good. That we can heal one another.

You lay a salve on my body, I lay a salve on yous.

For Yuu Kanda and Allen Walker — the cure was in a kiss.

Aha, okay, I’m done. Sorry if I’m digging too deep into this. Just don’t roll your eyes at me, geez.

I’ll pipe down. Focus on keeping an eye on these kids. Their triumphs, their pain.

I’ve only got the one good eye to spare, but I’ll do my best.

  


-心跳-

 

Beneath the weight of a persistent spring breeze, you could hear the constant rustle and shuffle of sumac branches, oak leaves, and new dandelions. A perfect trapezoid of light, a blinding projection from the window above, flexed and shifted its way over Kanda’s bed.

And so, angling himself beneath the perfect ray of sunshine, Allen flexed and shifted as well.

He was sitting in a lazy half-sprawl atop Kanda’s bed, one leg dangling casually off the edge. Kanda was sitting on the other end of the bed, back against the headboard. An easy way to spend an afternoon, lazing about like this — Allen had his World History textbook open over his lap, which he was taking occasional glances at. Sometimes, he’d skim towards the study guide and quiz Kanda.

Define _imperialism_ . Define _protectorate_ . Define _feudalism_.

And then, Kanda would roll his eyes, offer some vague half-answer. Not the studious type, that Yuu Kanda. Not that Allen minded. If anything, he was just pleased to look at _Kanda._ He looked wonderful, stripped down from his blazer, the cuffs off his shirt rolled up to the elbow. Blue eyes exuding a lush, velvet softness, expressing nothing and revealing everything.

“Feudalism, uh,” Kanda frowned down at his hands. He was toying with some kind of little cube puzzle, sort of like a Rubik’s cube — it was obvious he had no idea how to solve it, but he didn’t seem to care. “That was the thing with the... serfs and lords. Serfs gave the lords a share of the produce in exchange for military protection and shit.”

“That’s right, actually,” Allen hummed, raising an eyebrow. “Now there’s a shocking development. At this rate, you might even pass.”

Kanda shot Allen a glare.

“What, you thought I was gonna fail?”

“Well, you’re not exactly on the honour roll,” Allen pointed out gently, offering Kanda a wry smile. “Plus, history tests are pretty much dependant on memorisation. Not your forte, right?”

Kanda huffed, turning his puzzle over in his hands.

“Like anyone should be expected to remember an assload of random ass dates,” he muttered, eyes tracking back down to his hands. They curled around the base of the cube, nails rasping gently against the plastic. “We can’t all be Howard fucking Link.”

“I think one Howard Link is more than enough enough, yes,” Allen agreed blithely, hiding his smile against the side of his hand. “And the world would certainly be poorer without you in it, Kanda. Idiocy and all.”

_“You’re_ the idiot,” Kanda bit back. “I’ve seen your grades. They’re barely better than mine.”

“Because I study!”

“No, because you _cheat_.”

A pointed accusation. Pointed, but not inaccurate.

Allen stuck his tongue out at Kanda, then flipped the page of his textbook. Kanda smiled down at his little puzzle, satisfied to have one this most recent of verbal duels.

I should tell you now — it was a Tuesday. A beautiful, glittering tuesday; frozen, memorialized beneath a glassy breeze.

Two boys. The slick, Spartan cut of Kanda’s white sheets, crumpled beneath their bodies. The five o’clock sunshine, reaching through the clouds; a young girl’s white, beckoning hand.

The perfect set-dressing for a romantic escapade, wouldn’t you say?

But instead, they were — to use a common parlance —  just _hanging out._

Feigning interest in the history of manorialism, Allen wondered if he ought to be disappointed.

True, this wasn’t Allen’s first time in Kanda’s bedroom — rather, it was his second — but it was his first time in Kanda’s bedroom as his _boyfriend_ . Plus, they were on Kanda’s _bed_ together. Should he have been anticipating a physical encounter? Would there be a physical encounter anytime soon? They’d only been dating a few days, granted — but they’d hardly made any progress beyond that first kiss.

But, _God,_ what a lovely kiss that had been.

Soft. Explorative. A circumnavigation of — of something.

Something like love. A first love.

Allen’s heart went up in flames—

And burned right down.

“Somehow, I thought there’d be something a little more risque on the menu today,” Allen admitted, closing the book over his lap.

The heavy cover clapped shut with a thud.

“Excuse me?” Kanda said, lifting his head from his puzzle.

“I’m your boyfriend,” Allen explained, emphatic. “You invited me up into your bedroom. Do the math.”

Kanda laughed. Actually _laughed_. He had a somewhat hoarse laugh, as if out of practice — Allen had only heard it a few times now.

“What, were you expecting me to jump your bones?”

“Not necessarily,” Allen sulked, in place of answering with a staunch and unambiguous _yes._ Then, perking up with a sudden spark of hope, “Why, have you been holding back on my account?”

A chivalrous notion.

An _unrealistic_ notion.

“Not really,” Kanda returned, blunt as ever. He turned his puzzle over in his hands, thoughtful. “I mean, it’s not like I don’t ever _think_ about it. You’re my boyfriend. _Obviously_ I wanna fool around with you.”

“You want to fool around with me?” Allen repeated, strangely thrilled by this admission.

“Well, duh,” Kanda said, a little pink in the cheeks now. “But, you know. We’ve been dating… for like, three fucking days. What’s the rush?”

“No rush,” Allen agreed, folding his hands over his lap as he scrutinized Kanda; his relaxed demeanor, the cascade of his black hair, the lines of his shoulders. _Fool around. Fool around._ He turned the words over in his mind, found them to his liking. “Well, you’re definitely right about that. There’s no reason to rush. No reason at all. But, of course — at the same time, what reason do we have to hold back?”

Kanda laughed again; warmer now, lower now. There was heat to this sound; a felt-like down to this sound. Temperature and texture. With every laugh, it seemed he was becoming a little more like himself.

“Oh my fucking God. You so  _were_ expecting me to jump your bones.”

“Is that so unreasonable?” Allen sniffed, tossing his head to the side. “Am I not unbearably attractive?”  
  
“Oh, you’re unbearable, alright.”

Allen sighed.

“Okay, remind me — just how much of this relationship is going to be comprised of casual insults?”

Twisting the puzzle anew, Kanda hummed, “Dunno. Maybe 70%.”

“That high?” Allen worried at his lower lip with his teeth, dropping his head against the wall. “I’d like to see a little more of the other 30%.”

“What, right now?”

“Yeah,” Allen said, slumping down, down, down until he was lying with his back flat against the bed, his body aligned horizontally with Kanda’s. He could see Kanda’s expression, relaxed if not somewhat deadpan, from the valley between his knees. It was a somewhat intriguing perspective. “Go on,” he encouraged, lifting a hand from the bed to wave it idly. “Lavish me in praise. In tenderness”

“So basically... compliments?”

“Sure,” Allen said, waving a hand. “Compliments, yes, yes. We can start there.”

A beat. The sound of a dragonfly zipping past the window. Static. The invisible, indivisible hands of God. Of young boys of flower. Of wound-up jaybirds.

“You’re… pretty hot,” Kanda offered. Awkwardly. Allen could feel Kanda’s eyes flitting over his body slowly before landing somewhere square around his thighs. Then, abashed, he coughed. “You know, in like. A weird way.”

“Tender,” Allen said, folding his legs one over the other, “doesn’t mean the same thing as horny. That was _horny,_ Kanda.”

Kanda frowned.

“Fine,” he said, scratching the back of his neck uncertainly. After a moment of hemming and hawing, he grudging amended himself, “Instead of hot, how about… uh… beautiful?”

“Beautiful?” Allen repeated, raising his eyebrows.

“Yeah, fuck, um. You know…” Kanda gestured helplessly, his blush crawling up to even the tips of his ears. “You — you have nice skin.”

Allen hummed, swaying his knees back and forth.

“What else?”

“This is the _definition_ of fishing for compliments, you know. The fucking _definition_.”

“Guilty,” Allen laughed. “I can’t help it. I’m selfish. I’m a greedy, greedy boy.”

“Yeah. And _still_ an idiot.”

“An idiot with nice skin, at the very least.”

Kanda swatted at Allen with a pillow. It smacked squarely against his knees, harmless. Allen rolled his eyes bemused.

“It’s okay,” he said, looking up at the ceiling. “I mean… obviously, those kinds of things are nice to hear, but. You’re not the kind of person who _does_ honeyed words, and that’s fine with me.”

“You’re right,” Kanda admitted, sitting up. His puzzle was knocked off the bed, onto the floor, already forgotten. His full attention now focused squarely on Allen. “I don’t do honeyed words. I’m no fucking good at them.”

“It’s okay,” Allen said.

“... I wonder.”

And then Kanda was crossing the space between them, coming to Allen on his knees — his blue eyes set dark and hard, like bottle glass.

Allen startled, parting his lips to speak — but then, Kanda’s body was arced over his, Kanda’s knees planting around Allen’s hips, and Kanda was reaching for Allen’s hand.

He covered it with his own, warm and broad and wonderful.

“Is this good?” He asked.

Kanda’s long hair had them curtained, closed off.

Alone together.

“Yes,” Allen said.

Kanda leaned down, hair falling, tickling Allen’s cheek. It had a sweet scent.

“I’m not gonna smother you in sweet nothings — that’s not my style. I wouldn’t know where to fuckin’ start. But… hey, I can lavish you in another kind of tenderness.” He bent his head low, close to Allen, lips slanted as if to kiss him — and cupped Allen’s cheek with his other hand, heart-rending. There was something firm and rough and uncoordinated in his grip; a slapdash, forceful sort of passion. “The only kind of tenderness I know.”

“You’re certainly a very physical person,” Allen sighed, reaching up to hook his arms around Kanda’s neck. “You’re lucky I appreciate that about you.”

“I still think it’s a bit soon for us to be getting all down and dirty,” Kanda said, point-blank.

Allen blinked.

“Okay.”

“But — stuff like kissing, that’s cool with me.”

“Kissing is very, very cool,” Allen agreed, hoping he would soon get to do some.

“What about you? You know,” Kanda pulled his hand away, very briefly, to gesticulate between the two of them vaguely, “your comfort zone. Your limits, expectations. That kinda shit.”

“I’m good with anything,” Allen said immediately. “Whatever you want is fine with me.”

“How nice,” Kanda said. “Now, give me a real, non-bogus answer.”

Busted.

“I get lonely pretty easily,” Allen admitted. “And… I’ll admit it, I feel pretty ready for sex. Of course, I don’t _mind_ waiting for sex stuff, but… other things, like touch, like romance — tenderness, kindness — they’re important to me. I go kind of crazy without then. I’m selfish, you know? I just want… you to hold me. All the time, really.” He laughed; Kanda bent down and kissed the corner of his mouth, as if to reward him for the sound. “Arguing all the time works for sitcom couples, but this is real life. Sometimes, I just want you to let me know—”

_That you love me —_

“... That you value me.”

Kanda kissed him again, this time full on the mouth. He tasted like chamomile flowers, like hibiscus, like honey and _camellia sinesis_. White tea, lighter than air, carefully strained through a much-beloved antique infuser. Kanda’s favourite. A taste far removed from the sugar-sour  of blue raspberry. A pale taste, light and sweet in the simplest and purest of ways. Like rainfall.

It wouldn’t be inaccurate to say that — in certain ways — Kanda could be shockingly pure.

Pure in the way only animals are.

“Of course I fucking value you,” Kanda said, lips wandering over Allen’s cheek. Mouthing against the raised impression of Allen’s scar, he said, “You’re a fucking idiot, but you’re _my_ idiot.”

Allen smiled, a hint of his old deviousness shining through.

“Careful, darling. That statement savours strongly of possessiveness.”

“Yeah, well, I _am_ possessive. You already know that.”

“I do,” Allen grinned, the shape of it curving against Kanda’s own lips. “And I do believe I warned you once before — jealousy is an easily manipulable trait.”

“See, you say that like it’s a bad thing,” Kanda growled, looking for all the world like he might nip. Allen hoped he would. Hoped very much. “But you like it. You love how jealous I get. You get so fucking excited every time I put my hands on you, say you’re mine.”

“Jealousy is a manipulable trait,” Allen repeated, hands wandering down Kanda’s shoulders, his back, testing the give of his back; there was a gorgeous definition to the musculature, here, and Allen felt desperate to memorize its every peak and valley. “It’s also a _manipulative_ trait. You’re manipulating me right now, see. Quite effectively.”

Kanda frowned.

“You don’t seem to mind that.”

“I don’t,” Allen agreed, pressing a kiss to the corner of Kanda’s mouth; a kiss lasting a moment too long, soft but full of promise. “In fact, I’m very much enjoying it.”

“Enjoying my possessiveness,” Kanda said, rolling his eyes. “You know, that sounds pretty fucking dirty.”

“I like what I like,” Allen admitted.

Hiss and bite, poison and poultice. Wisdom and treachery. Sibilance. Sweetness.

_Come for me, Yuu Kanda, and drain me by the neck. Deceive me._

“Will you say it again?” Allen asked, struck with a sudden desperation. He let his hands fall away from Kanda’s shoulders, hitting the sheets with a dull _thump._ He tilted his head back, neck bared, wrists exposed — there was something thrilling in the pose. Something that made him feel so strangely vulnerable. He felt like he was on display — not like a work of art, though. Rather, a feast. He felt fit to be consumed. “That I’m yours.”

The sumac trees outside, a baying April wind. Insecurity and affection rattling together like swords, exploding in emotional code.

“You’re mine,” Kanda said.

His voice was quiet. But it was nice. It was really, really nice.

Allen sighed, languid and luxuriant. He let his lashes fan low, as if dozing, watching with a pleasant laziness as Kanda pushed himself back up to rest on his haunches.

“Maybe say it again,” Allen suggested, voice dropping to a murmur.

“You’re mine.”

“One more time. Please.”

Kanda’s stare was a velvet curtain; crushed blue, revealing nothing yet promising wonders.

“You’re mine.”

“Kanda,” Allen said, just wanting to say his name, to taste it.

“You’re mine, Allen Walker. My stupid, ridiculous, beansprout fucking fool.”

A cloud passed over the sun. Allen smiled, half in shadow.

“That’ll do.”

This time, Allen was the one to lean up, meeting Kanda’s mouth with his own. It was a chaste, chaste kiss. A boyish kiss. It was soft and dry, like the skin of an uncut fruit.

It made Allen feel like he was giving up his whole, entire world.

He didn’t mind at all. Not even a bit.

Isn't that something?  


-再次-

  


Music. Darkness. Bodies moving through darkness.

Birds and cats and snakes. Velvet gloves, spit, blue raspberry, braided bread, platinum, King Cobras, a hidden cat’s eye, a story that isn’t a story.

Cassiopeia, Cetus, Cepheus. Pegasus and Auriga. Perseus, slave-warrior, killer of Medusa. Andromeda, the chained maiden.

On the edge of the serpent’s tooth—

With the heat of a thousand stars —

The story spins anew.

  


-毒液-

  


It was on a Thursday that the first attack was discovered. A rainy Thursday. A lazy, easy Thursday; the kind that flows into Friday like the river delta into the sea.

The victim was a man, late 30s, average build; nobody important. Not relevant to our story, anyhow. He was attacked late at night at a bus stop — it came at him from behind, skittering down from the dilapidated roof of the bus shelter to lunge at his neck and shoulders.

An ambush hunter.

Like me pass over the actual violence and report instead on the damage inflicted. His clavicle, chicken-boned. His right humerus, a triple fracture. Three ribs broken. A bruised lung. A gash on the right shoulderblade. A bead of punctured flesh, drawing bittersweet blood.

A choke bruise about his neck; fierce and bright red. Carotid arteries compressed and constricted.

His windpipe busted, provoking agony at the barest whistle of a breath.

_To survive is to suffer._

Whatever it was, it shattered the shelter’s plexiglass panelling into a million pieces. Like rock candy.

Whatever it was, it put in a thousand fucking points of damage.

Whatever it was, it was cruel and unusual. Devoid of all mercy.

It came without warning, then disappeared without a trace.

That man, that insignificant man, survived.  They shipped him off to the city hospital. He’ll likely spend the remainder of the year there.

So it goes.

By Friday morning, police were swarming the entire street. They wrapped the shelter up in yellow tape, flooded the lane with cops, sent forensics into the surrounding woods. Nobody knew which it was they were looking for — a man, or an animal.

But that didn’t keep them from gossiping.

Small town, small people, a spectacle of violence. How could they _not?_

“No way it was an animal,” Kanda interjected over lunch, pointing towards Allen with his spoon. “What kinda animal fuckin’ mauls a person like that?”

“Coyotes?” Allen suggested, frowning as he considered the possibilities. “Coyotes attack people, right? Some dogs do… I bet a bear would, if provoked.”

“I heard that the guy had choke bruises, all around his neck,” Kanda gestured towards his own throat, and Lenalee made a pained expression, making herself small. “You telling me _bears_ do that?”  
  
“Well, what do _you_ think it was?”

“Some crazy ex-girlfriend of his, probably.”

“Could be,” Allen said, doubtful. He thought of the police pushing into the woods, the cracked roof of the bus shelter he’d spied through the yellow tape throng. “I still think it was an animal.”

There were a lot of things he thought it might be. None of them pleasant.

He could hardly ignore the possibility it was neither human nor animal —

“You can think whatever you want, but I know I’m right,” Kanda concluded defensively. He nudged his chin in Lenalee’s direction, expression petulant. “Oi, what do you think? No way it was a bear, right?”

Lenalee, sitting adjacent to them, poked and prodded at her cauliflower. Expression listless, eyes lacquered with a faraway gloss.

“It could have been a bear,” she murmured.

She was wearing a black turtleneck beneath her school blazer, so high up her neck she could tuck her chin into the fabric. It was a morose look. The look of a mourner, or a bad slam poet. Something about it struck Allen as wrong.

“Oh, come _on._ Bears hardly ever attack humans. They eat fish and shit, not people.”

Lenalee pressed her cheek into the palm of her hand, leaning heavily against the table.

“I don’t know,” she said softly, staring down at her tray of lukewarm potatoes. “I think…” She lifted her glassy eyes, grasping for words. “I think it could’ve been a bear.”

She crossed her legs under the table and sighed, empty.

“It must have been a bear,” Allen interjected, bargaining with them. “I mean… what kind of person would do such a thing, you know?”

“Someone sick,” Kanda said.

“Someone… someone evil,” Lenalee said.

“I’m surprised someone like you believes in evil,” Kanda commented, folding his arms.

“I believe in goodness,” Lenalee smiled, the tilt of it so strangely sad. “You can’t have good without evil. Goodness is a comparative state. Evil is necessary as a counterpart to good.”

The venom, the cure.

Allen wasn’t so certain he agreed.

“Guys,” he sighed, rapping his fork against the table. “This is depressing. Can we just agree it was a bear?”

“It wasn’t a bear,” Kanda said.

“I mean, I — I hope was a bear,” Lenalee agreed, haltingly. “I think — I’m hoping for that more than anything, right now.”

Allen turned to face her; her milky, pale face. Pink lips, dark hair. The warm slope of her eyes.

“Is that so?”

“I believe in evil,” she said. “But I have no stomach for it.”

_Primitive, isn’t it? The violence of beasts; the warring of snakes, writhing through the dust. I can’t stand the sight of it. I can’t stand to see myself within it._

_I need to be good, after all._

_They’re all counting on me. They need me to be good._

“... I’m a coward, after all,” she smiled.

She turned her potatoes over with her fork; they slopped through the tines, white and runny, more cream than substance.

“We need _seriously_ need to learn how to have normal conversations,” Allen decided.

Kanda laughed, skewering a gelatinous glob of meat and popping it into his mouth.

“Sure we do, sprout. _Sure we do.”_  


**Author's Note:**

> fuckhowardlink @ twitter


End file.
